The X-Files - 4.

French title: L'homme a la cigarette
translation: The Man with the Cigarette

US Airdate: November 17, 1996

writers: Glen Morgan and Jim Wong

director: Jim Wong

STARRING:

David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder

Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully

Guest Cast:

William B. Davis ...... Cigarette Smoking Man

Chris Owens ...... Young Cigarette Smoking Man

Colin Lawrence ..... The troop leader

Dean Aylesworth ...... The soldier

Anthony Ashbee ...... The Corporal

Donnelly Rhodes ...... General Francis

Peter Mele ....... The Mob Man

Dan Zukovic ..... Agent Man

Gonzalo Canton ...... Cuban Man

Steve Oatway ..... The Supervisor

David Fredericks ...... The Director

Peter Hanlon ...... The Aide

Michael St. John ...... The Major General

Paul Jarret ..... James Earl Ray

Laurie Murdoch ....... Lydon

Marc Baur ...... Matlock

Jude Zachary ...... Jones

Jerry Hardin ...... Deep Throat

Tom Braidwood ...... Frohike

Bruce Harwood ...... Byers

Morgan Weisser ...... Lee Harvey Oswald

FROHIKE PEICES TOGETHER WHAT COULD BE THE SECRETS BEHIND THE MYSTERIOUS CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN¹S PAST. HIS SPECULATION COULD COST HIM HIS LIFE.

In the Lone Gunmen's office, Scully and Mulder listen, as Frohike reveals what he suspects to be the chilling, secret past of the Cigarette- Smoking Man. Hiding in a nearby high rise, the Cigarette-Smoking Man eavesdrops on them with electronic listening devices, his sniper's rifle trained on the office's front door. Who will be his next target?

Frohike tells of how the Cigarette-Smoking Man was orphaned as a baby. His father, a Communist spy, was electrocuted. His mother died of lung cancer. In 1963, he was an Army Captain (whose only friend is the proud father of 1-year-old Fox Mulder). Recognizing his capabilities, the right-wing conspiracy that operates within the shadows of the official government recruits the young officer - his first assignment: the assassination of JFK. In its successful aftermath, he lights his first smoke...and becomes the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

By 1968, even J. Edgar Hoover takes orders from the Cigarette- Smoking Man, and no President has ever suspected he exists. The Cigarette-Smoking Man personally takes charge of the operation against Martin Luther King. Yet, even the Cigarette-Smoking Man has a dream. He longs to be a published author, and writes political potboilers under a pen name. Despite a pile of scathing rejections, he keeps trying.

Christmas 1991. The Cigarette-Smoking Man is in charge of the men we think are in charge. He's covertly started wars, assassinated world leaders, rigged elections, the Oscars, the Olympics, the Super Bowl and moved the Rodney King trial to Simi Valley. Despite his power, he's a lonely man leading an empty life. He still can't get his written works published. And with the Soviet Union gone, he doesn't even have any more enemies.

Then it happens. A survivor is discovered in the wreckage of an alien craft. His mysterious associate known to Mulder and Scully as Deep Throat executes the only alien which survived the crash The Cigarette- Smoking Man has a new purpose, and new truths to conceal.. He goes forth on this mission with a vengeance. Young FBI agents Fox "Spooky" Mulder and Dana Scully take on the "X-Files." Unknowingly they are part of the Cigarette-Smoking Man's plans.

This year. The Cigarette-Smoking Man is jubilant when a magazine finally accepts one of his stories. He prepares his resignation, and lights his last cigarette. Until he realizes the magazine is nothing but a cheap girlie rag -- whose editors even had the nerve to change the story's ending. With all his dreams destroyed, he sits on a park bench and muses about the similarity of life to a cheap, tasteless box of chocolates. Resuming his role, the Cigarette-Smoking Man lights up a smoke.

The present. The Cigarette-Smoking Man's finger is on the trigger of a sniper rifle, ready to repeat the act which started his shadowy career. He watches Frohike leave the office. Does he shoot? No. He can kill Frohike any time he chooses, and he revels in that power.

Finally we learn more about our mysterious black-lunged friend....or do we? Over an hour we explore Cancer Man's past history, through assassinations of major political leaders from Kennedy to Martin Luther King, Jr. to his years spent as a frustrated writer going year after year being rejected by one magazine after another. The whole tale comes from a story published in a cheesy magazine, that Frohike of the Lone Gunmen (with their hide-out's door clearly marked, Cancer Man watching and listening from across the street) reveals as CM's past. So is it a story or the truth?

Fascinating and entertaining, I thought. Any episode that can make me feel sorry for our beloved, evil, cruel smoky villian, is doing something right. Morgan and Wong's words, coupled with William B. Davis' characterization made for an outstanding, if somewhat unsettling episode. He was certainly humanized for us; handing out Christmas presents of identical, gaudy ties to his staff, living vicariously through Bill Mulder and his family, stubbornly using the same battered typewriter over all the years of toil, composing his resignation letter the day the article is printed, ready to throw in the towel and become a full-time writer, and we can't help but join in the giddy excitement he revels in when he speaks to the publisher about his article being printed.

But how much of what we learn here is truth? Unless the whole thing was a dream, I go with the fact that Cancer Man IS a frustrated writer, and he DID publish an article in a cheesy magazine, but it seems like the tale he writes is just that, a story, with maybe a basis in some truths from his life but embellished to make him more important than he really is. I mean, Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.?! See the conversation below between Cancer Man and Deep Throat where he says: "our names can never grace any pages of record, no monument will ever bear our image".

He's a man of the shadows and he'll never get the recognition he thinks he deserves, so why not write a fanciful story about himself? Another telling point is the final line of the show, "I can kill you whenever I please....... but not today." This same line is in one of the stories he types on his typewriter. It's all one big, entertaining fiction.

Another story-line involves Cancer Man being Fox Mulder's father, as many on the newsgroup believe. From a conversation between Mrs. Mulder and Cancer Man in the season finale last year, "Talitha Cumi", we were led to believe that they may have had an affair. From there, naturally, came the idea of Cancer Man being Fox's daddy (or even Samantha's, it goes on and on!), but from this episode, I've come to a different conclusion. We learn that Cancer Man is an orphan, his mother dying of cancer before he was one year old and his father killed as a communist spy. Bill Mulder hooks up with Cancer Man during the army, showing CM a photo of his young wife and baby. This same picture is seen later, either CM stole it, or Bill gave him a copy. A good point was made on the newsgroup that army buddies tend to look out for each others' families, just in case anything ever happens to them. Is it so hard to believe that Bill asked CM to do this for his family? One telling scene, taking place at Christmas, shows CM's co-workers asking him to join them for the holidays, and he declines, saying he has "family" to visit. Next we see him pausing then walking past a door in the basement of the FBI building....Fox Mulder's door. Is he looking at his son's door, or his army buddy's family? Hmmm...

There are so many thoroughly amusing scenes and lines in this one, where to start? His tobacco habit is a running gag, first starting when he meets up with Oswald (his first real task under his new hidden life) and coming and going over the years. Whenever he seems close to starting a new life, ridding himself of his past, he vows to quit, but a new assignment comes along more heinous than the last, and he's puffing away again. The scenes where he tugs at his nicotine patch are a great touch. See? He IS human!

The overall effect of Cancer Man as a frustrated writer and literary consumer is another humanizing trait. He says, "I'd rather read the worst novel ever written, than sit through the best movie ever made", then later tells Oswald, "I love the movies" and even smokes his first Morley cigarette at the movies. To get rid of his fellow Martin Luther King, Jr. conspirator, he tells him to "go to a movie or something". And, of course, when asked what his choices are for the Oscar nominations, he says he "couldn't care less". His only desire is to be a writer, but he can't catch a break. Rejection slips pile up over 30 years, can you blame him for becoming evil personified?

The inscription on Cancer Man's lighter: Trust No One. Maybe when Deep Throat was murdered in the season finale of season one, he was pointing the finger at Cancer Man?!

Roman-a-Clef: The name of the cheesy, possibly sleazy magazine that prints his article and which Frohike subscribes to. Quite possibly the key to the whole episode, as it is the source of the story Frohike tells. The dictionary definition: "Novel in which real persons or events appear in disguise".

The name of the publisher of "Roman-a-Clef", Walden Roth, comes from a mix of Dana Walden, head of drama at Twentieth Century Fox Television, and Peter Roth, one of Fox's network heads.

Eagle eyes noted that on the racks of the news stand where Cancer Man buys his magazine, is a magazine called "End Credits" and one of the stories on the cover is titled "Where the hell is Darin Morgan?". If you don't know WHO that is by now, you haven't been paying attention to this guide or the show :-)

Sign on "hideout" door: "Lone Gunmen, publishers of "The Magic Bullet" newsletter". Any true xphile will tell you that this is NOT the name of their newsletter, it is simply the Lone Gunmen.

Cancer Man appeared (or was born) on the same day as Trotsky was killed with an ice pick. A nice connection with the Alien Bounty Hunter who could only be killed by an ice-pick to the base of the skull.

Cancer Man is reading "The Manchurian Candidate", a book all about conspiracies and assasinations, when we meet him with Bill Mulder in the army barracks scene.

I can't confirm this, but other people said the military interview scene with Cancer Man was taken right from "Apocalyse Now".

His pseudonyms are Raul Bloodworth, Jack Colquitt, and Mr. Hunt (leading to the silly sounding Fox Hunt if Mulder were his son!). In real life, the late E. Howard Hunt was a CIA agent, involved with everything from the Bay of Pigs invasion to Watergate to possibly setting up Oswald as a

"patsy", and to top it all off, he published novels similar to what the character writes here, adventure/spy novels. The address on Cancer Man's envelopes:

Mr. Raul Bloodworth

555 Brookabank Ave., Apt. 24

Washington, D.C. 20091

Some comments on the newsgroup linked this episode with The Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for The Devil", which fits well with the line in the song about "who shot Kennedy when everybody knows it was you and me".

The package of cigarettes Oswald gives to Cancer Man have Marlboro Miles written on the side. Not exactly sure what THAT means, but there it is.

Oswald is shown shooting Officer Tippitt, as he did in "real life", just not in the sequence shown here. An in-joke maybe to the movie "Ruby" starring Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby and David Duchovny as Officer Tippitt?!

Nice effect of the crystal-clean, spotless ashtray where Cancer Man deposits the tinfoil packaging from his nicotine patch at the beginning of the Christmas Eve boardroom scene.

Lovely scene with Cancer Man listening in on Mulder and Scully's conversation from "The Pilot" episode (the only time we see Scully), and when Mulder says "I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me." , the smile on Cancer Man's lips speaks of a certain amount of pride at Mulder picking up on this. Maybe Scully IS a spy?!

The novel or novels we see him working on are "Take a Chance: A Jack Colquitt Adventure", and "Second Chance". The second one may be a sequel, or simply a revised version. Easy enough to read these as comments on Cancer Man's life, what started as an adventure of chances has become one man's plea for a second chance to redeem himself.

The Robert Kennedy speech that Cancer Man recites along with Robert: "(He who learns must suffer.) And even in our sleep pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

Aeschylus "Agamemnon" (line 177)

During the "box of chocolates" speech, note the [POST] NO BILLS signs, a reference to the Super Bowl comments.

What he types at home after pausing outside Fox Mulder's door, hearing him typing: "Jack Colquitt sat alone in his apartment at Christmas. He believed in sacrifice. But some nights he longed for a second chance..." A lot of discussion among the xphiles about these lines and how they relate to Cancer Man. Was Bill Mulder's family the sacrifice he made to be who he became? And would he take back all the power he has now if he only had a "second chance"?

Space: Above and Beyond connections yet again: Morgan Weisser as Oswald, Jack Colquitt was a character on an episode written by Morgan and Wong ("Who Monitors the Birds"), the name of one of Cancer Man's books "Choice or Chance" is also the title of a Space episode and a character

on the show's parents were killed because of a coin toss, very much like Cancer Man and Deep Throat do here with the alien. The line "Payback's a bitch" was apparently also used on Space a lot.

This episode was broken down into four parts and labelled on the screen as such:

Part One - "Things really did go well in Dealey Plaza."

Part Two - "Just down the road aways from Graceland."

Part Three - "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!!"

Part Four - "The X-Files"

Langly: "Frohike's close."

Frohike: "Don't use my name! What the hell's wrong with you?! Now I'll have to kill you!"

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Mulder: "I've been here 20 minutes and I still don't know what the hell is wrong! No one would kill you Frohike, you're just a little puppy dog."

Frohike: "I don't utter another syllable until the CSM-25 counter-measure filter is activated."

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Scully: "Now tell us what you're so close to."

Frohike: "Not a "what", who. If you find the right starting point and follow it, not even secrets of the darkest of men are safe."

Mulder: "Cancer Man? What did you find?"

Frohike: "Possibly everything. Maybe his background, who he is and who he wants to be."

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Cancer Man: "I'd rather read the worst novel ever written, than sit through the best movie ever made."

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Bill Mulder: (re: little baby Fox Mulder) "My one year old just said his first word."

Cancer Man: "What was the word?"

Bill Mulder: "JFK"

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General Francis: "Cigarette?"

Cancer Man: "No thank you sir, I never touch 'em."

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General Francis: "And then Captain...then there are extraordinary men. Those who must identify, comprehend and ultimately shoulder the responsibility for not only their own existance, but their country's and the world's as well. Your father Captain, believed his country should look to another form of government. And he took control of that belief. So, in that respect, we view him as an extraordinary man. And we believe...we KNOW Captain, that it runs in the family."

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Cancer Man: (to Oswald) "You shouldn't smoke those Lee. I'm reading studies that say they can kill ya."

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Cancer Man: "I'm going to the movies at the Texas Theatre, it's only 90 cents. I love the movies."

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Cancer Man: (re: the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"I'll do it myself. I have too much respect for the man."

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Staff Member: "I'm working on next month's Oscar nominations, any preference?"

Cancer Man: "I couldn't care less. What I don't want to see is the Bills winning the Super Bowl. As long as I'm alive, that doesn't happen."

Staff Member: "Could be tough sir, Buffalo wants it bad."

Cancer Man: "So did the Soviets in '80."

Staff Member: "What are you saying, you rigged the Olympic hockey game?"

Cancer Man: "What's the matter? Don't you believe in miracles?"

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Staff Member: "One thing internally. That "Spooky" kid who talked his way into opening the X-Files? Feels like trouble."

Cancer Man: "He's mine to keep an eye on."

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Deep Throat: "You'll never believe what we just got for Christmas."

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Cancer Man: (to Deep Throat) "How many historic events have only the two of us witnessed together Ronald? How often did we make or change history? And our names can never grace any pages of record, no monument will ever bear our image, and yet, once again, tonight the course of human history will be set by two unknown men standing in the shadows."

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Cancer Man: "A living E.B.E. could advance Bill Mulder's project by decades."(E.B.E. stands for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity)

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Deep Throat:"I'm the liar, you're the killer".

Cancer Man: "Your lies have killed more men in a day than I have in a lifetime. I've never killed anybody."

Deep Throat: "Maybe I'm not the liar."

Cancer Man: "I have a chance to go an entire lifetime without killing anybody or anything."

Deep Throat: "In all of our work in the past 30 years, all of our victories, if the world were to see this, it would destroy all we've gained in a few hours. Tonight, we have a new enemy."

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Cancer Man: (handing Deep Throat the gun to kill the alien) "Go ahead. Make history."

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Frohike: "Henry David Thoreau said, 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' His life has been anything but quiet, yet *I* believe nothing but desperate. He's the most dangerous man alive. Not so much because he believes in his actions, but because he believes these actions are all which life allows him. And yet the only person that can never escape him is himself."

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Cancer Man: (reading his published story) "This isn't the ending that I wrote...it's all wrong!"

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Cancer Man: "Life...is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an english toffee, but they're gone too fast, and the taste is...fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers."

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Frohike: "So far this is based only on a story I read in one of my weekly subscriptions that rang a few bells. I'm going out to check on the private hacker sources and work on tracking a few leads that can produce definitive proof. And THEN we'll have him nailed."