The X-Files - 5.

German title: Ein Spiel
translation: A Game

Japanese title: Doll

Spanish title: Maleficio
translation: Curse

 US Airdate: February 8, 1998

writers: Stephen King and Chris Carter

director: Kim Manners

STARRING:

David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder

Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully

Mitch Pileggi as Assistant Director Walter Skinner

Guest Cast:

Susannah Hoffman as Melissa Turner

Jenny Lynn Hutcheson as Polly Turner

Carolyn Tweedle as Jane Froelich

Gordan Tipple as Assistant Manager

Harrison Coe as Dave the Fishmonger

Larry Musser as Jack Bonsaint

William MacDonald as Buddy Riggs

Dean Wray as Rich Turner

In a nutshell: Scully goes to Maine for the weekend and gets caught up in an x-file on her own; an evil doll that appears to be killing off the residents of Ammas Beach.

Plotline

The camera shows us a Maine licence plate close-up, 384M 95, with the slogan, "Vacationland" on the bottom. A rather sour-faced little girl is seated in the passenger seat, her doll on her lap, as her mother opens the door, telling her they only need a few groceries, it won't take long. The girl, Polly, reluctantly undoes her seat belt and exits the car, clutching her doll closely. As they enter the store, a woman is leaving with her bag of groceries. The woman stares with distaste at the pair, stopping to turn and stare some more as they enter the store. Pushing her wobbly-wheeled cart, the mother, Melissa, is greeted by more stares from her fellow shoppers and the butcher stops to look with the beginning of a smile as they pass by. Polly's perched in the child seat of the cart and begins to whine that she doesn't like this store and wants to go home. Restraining herself from slapping the kid in the chops, as most would have done by now, the mother pushes on. Suddenly, the doll's eyes open, she says, "Let's have fun," and the spooky music alerts us to trouble ahead.

Melissa starts pushing the cart faster, the music builds, and she stops in front of the frozen food section as a horrific vision greets her from the glass. It's the butcher, a knife through his left eye, mouthing the words, "Help, Melissa." She now pushes the cart at racing speed and tells Polly that they're leaving, "Please don't do this to Mommy." It's too late, it's begun. All around the store, people begin slapping themselves and scratching at their eyes, drawing blood, as Melissa races out with Polly in her arms. As they exit, the butcher comes out from the back, looking in shock at what's happening around him. His own hand, encased in a metallic glove, now reaches for his eyes. He stumbles back behind the counter, picks up the phone and calls 911, telling them to send whoever's on duty. He drops the phone as he hears a voice, "I want to play," and sees a reflection in the meat locker door. He pulls out a long knife, aims it at the door, then battles with it as his hand turns around, now aiming for his eye. We hear his scream and see the doll's reflection in the door. Cue the theme music, we've arrived in Stephen King's world.

A sign on a building tells us we're in Ammas Beach, as seagulls swoop and screech along the main drag. A blue convertible drives up the road and pulls into a gas station, its driver exiting to pump her own gas. It's Scully! In a tight Maine t-shirt, jeans and sunglasses, yet! As she begins to pump, her cell phone rings. She goes to the front of her car to retrieve the key for the trunk, which contains her suitcase and her phone. Standing right in front of a huge, "WE SERVE" sign, Scully answers the phone and it's Mulder, trying to entice her with a "classic x-file" case. No dice, she says, they've agreed to take the weekend off, she's on vacation. She hangs up on him, a slight smirk on her face. As she drives into the grocery store parking lot, Scully has to stop short as she comes upon Melissa and Polly's car leaving quickly. As their car pulls away with a squeal, Scully sees an old man exiting the store, blood running down his face. She gets out of the car, putting on her official FBI business jacket, and asks him what happened. The man says, "I think we need a doctor." For some reason, she doesn't bother to tell him she's a doctor, but enters the store, stopping at the check-out counter where the clerk is crying, her eyes scratched and bleeding just like the old man's. She walks through the store, seeing the same afflictions on everyone before a man stops her and asks who she is. After a hesitation, she identifies herself as, "Scully", an FBI agent. *sigh* Looks like she's working after all. The man says he doesn't know what happened to them all, but Dave the butcher appears to be dead. Scully goes to the back room and finds Dave with a knife sticking out of his eye, dead as a doornail on the floor.

Next we see Mulder in his office, munching on sunflower seeds, watching a porno.

NOTE: This caused so much fuss and bother on the lists and newsgroup, so here's what *I* see: The sounds coming from Mulder's TV are not conducive with the bee swarm video he tells Scully he's watching. Also, note the open, empty video box on the front of his desk marked, "Alien Probe". This prop was discussed in the March '98 US Magazine cover story on David (available from The David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade 3 <http://miri.simplenet.com/ddeb3/>) and, according to the interview, he's definitely watching a porno, the video box was his idea and Kim Manners nixed the thought of Mulder standing up and being pantless. Yes, you can see a brief clip of someone being attacked by bees on the TV as he turns it off, but he first turned the video off with the remote. When he put the tape in, the bee show was already playing, okay?

Okay, so Mulder's watching a porno as Scully calls. She's in the security office of the grocery store, watching their surveillance video of the whole event. Mulder tries to suggest that maybe she's dealing with some form of witchcraft and doesn't know what to look for. She cuts off that idea by rattling off a long list of witchcraft possibilities. Mulder's enchanted and asks her to marry him, awwww. Scully was hoping for more help and hangs up, but doesn't cut him off this time. She watches some more of the surveillance tape and notices one woman and child not slapping themselves silly, looks like a major clue! Too bad the two cops watching the tape with her didn't catch on. After telling them they might want to talk to the woman, Melissa Turner, she starts to leave the store but is stopped by the cop, Jack Bonsaint. He wants to know if Scully's staying in town, as the idea about witchcraft being involved has intrigued him. Seems that folks around town have labelled Melissa a witch already. Scully tells him she really doesn't believe in witchcraft and Jack agrees, saying he figured Melissa was called one due to her being, "young and pretty and single". Now he's not so sure, seeing as she'd been "carrying on" with Dave, the now dead butcher.

Next we see Buddy, another cop, calling Melissa at home. As she talks to him, her daughter, Polly, sits next to a record player as it plays, "The Hokey Pokey" (get used to it!), her doll on her lap. Polly's not pleased, as she hears her mother identify the caller as Buddy, "Hang up, Mommy." Buddy's telling her that he knows they were at the Super Saver, which she denies as she starts walking out of Polly's room to get away from that annoying song. As she reaches the outside of the house, Buddy tells her that Dave is dead (SIDENOTE: We couldn't help it, my viewing group all yelled, "Dave's dead, man!". Any Cheech and Chong fans out there?). He says he wants to come and see her, she needs a friend right now, which causes the doll's eyes to pop open, "Let's have fun". Melissa tells him he can't come over, she can't explain why, just don't come over. As he tells her he is coming, she shouldn't be alone, we see the doll in silhouette behind the sheets drying on the clothesline. The doll blinks.

Scully and Captain Jack (Hey! Any other Billy Joel fans?) arrive at Melissa's house, Jack knocking on the door as Scully looks through the window and sees the back door open. They walk around back, Jack commenting that the sheets are still wet (how does he know? They're not dripping) and enter the house. Scully walks into Polly's room and calls for Jack. She shows him the window, crudely nailed shut. Jack wonders what the heck Melissa could be running from and tells Scully that she's a born and bred local gal, married a fisherman that died last year in a boating accident ("This was no boating accident!", classic line from the movie, "Jaws", seems to fit here). He explains that the daughter, Polly, may have not understood it all, "toys in the attic". This phrase has always been open to cover any number of mental illnesses to me, but Scully automatically assumes he means that Polly's autistic, which sticks in my craw a bit, seeing as I have an autistic son and would beat anyone senseless that labelled him this way! Pardon me my mini-rant, back to the plot ...

Seems that Polly's day care teacher had to slap Polly during a furious tantrum (so, this makes the kid autistic?!) and ending up on the floor, having been hit by the kid. Scully, taking the part of the viewer, finds this hard to believe. Jack doesn't think the kid hit her either, but the incident caused the teacher to lose her licence, people started calling the kid all sorts of name and labelled Melissa a witch. Polly never went to school again (aha! There's the problem!). Scully asks about Melissa's affair with the butcher, but Jack makes it clear that it wasn't an affair, far from it. Dave made a right fool of himself and his wife, it was completely unrequited. Scully notes that maybe that's why the windows are nailed shut, to keep Dave out, but Jack doesn't think Dave was that much of a fool. He says, "Maybe she wasn't afraid of something getting in, but maybe she's afraid of something getting out." (Help me here Stephen King fans, wasn't this same scenerio used in one of his books? "Salem's Lot" maybe?)

Buddy puts a nice, big, ice cream sundae down in front of Polly and leaves her alone at a table. He's at the local Tastee Queen with Melissa, trying to talk her into leaving town, he'll even provide the money, as he's had his eye on her for a long time and doesn't want to miss this chance. Hmmm ... so far, two men that loved her have been killed in horrible fashions. Yeah, she's ripe for the plucking, Buddy, go for it. She refuses him, saying he doesn't understand. Polly picks up her sundae and walks to the counter. Melissa tells Buddy she couldn't stop what happened at the Super Saver, she's seen "things". Polly's now at the counter demanding more cherries from the waitress behind the counter as Melissa's telling about her visions of the two dead guys. The waitress tells the kid she'll need more money if she wants any cherries, not a good idea! The doll's eyes pop open, uh oh. Polly looks intently at the waitress' incredibly long ponytail, then spins around and yells, "I want more cherries!" at her mother. Melissa gets up from the table, telling her they have to leave as she gathers their jackets and the doll. The kid's yelling, "Mommy!" as Buddy gives Melissa a key to a hunting lodge, a place for her to go to get away from it all. Suddenly, as the waitress makes a shake, she screams as her hair becomes caught in the machine (shades of King's short story, "The Mangler"). Buddy leaps heroically over the counter to save the girl who's now bleeding from her scalp. As he tugs at her hair to release it (scissors anyone?), he looks up to see Melissa and Polly leave.

Jack and Scully go to the "Wee Lassies and Laddies Daycare" to see the teacher, Jane, that slapped Polly, but she's not very helpful, calling Melissa a slattern (slut) and a witch. She says Melissa's family has been cursed for generations and she hopes the woman gets all she has coming to her. She slams the door in their face. Scully sarcastically comments on that lovely New England hospitality she's heard so much about. As they walk to the police car, Jane watches them through her curtains. Scully suggests to Jack that he might want to talk to Melissa about this family background, see if anything can be cleared up, to which Jack says, and I quote, "A'yup". Scully wishes she could help, but, as she's stated before, she's on vacation. As they leave in the police car, Jane stares out the curtains.

It's 11:06 PM and a car pulls up to the Schoodic Lake Ranger Station, Melissa and Polly are heading to Buddy's hunting lodge. The ranger asks where they're going and whether they have equipment, "winter's in full force up there". Man, how far is this place? Not a flake of snow anywhere in town and heck, Scully's in a convertible and t-shirt fer gosh sakes! Polly's not happy, what else is new, and demands that her mother take her home, she wants her bed and her records (she has more than one?). As the ranger leaves to take down her licence plate, the doll's eye fly open, "Let's have fun", and Melissa turns to see a vision of Jane in her back window, her neck bleeding, saying, "help me". That's enough for Mom, she burns rubber and gets the heck outta there, turning the car back to town.

Now we see Jane at home. She hears "The Hokey Pokey" playing and goes to investigate, mistake number one. The light-switch in the room where the music's coming from doesn't work, so she walks into the darkness, of course, stepping over numerous broken 45 records on the floor. She reaches under a piece of plastic covering a record player and lifts the arm off the record playing. Suddenly she hears a voice, "I want to play" and drops the needle back on the record, causing it to get stuck in a groove, "that's what it's all about .... that's what it's all about .... that's what it's all about", arrrgggghhhh! She picks up one of the broken records and brings the jagged edge to her throat. We see the back of the doll standing in the doorway as the record now continues playing, "we do the hokey-pokey...".

Scully's having a leisurely bubble bath, classical music playing from the main room, when the phone starts to ring. She half-cocks one eye open, closes them, then reaches out a leg to shut the bathroom door. Gotta be Mulder, let him stew. Next we see her leaving the bathroom, fully clothed, her hair wrapped in a towel as she puts on her earrings and turns the music down. She glances at her phone. The message light is blinking and she sighs, but ignores it and goes to the window, throwing the curtains open with a flourish. Jack is standing there, just emerging from his cop car and he gives a little wave and grin. She smiles back, out of courtesy.

A coroner's van's back door is opened and a gurney pulled out as Scully and Jack arrive on the scene. It's the daycare centre, Jane's house, and she's dead on the floor, her throat slashed. Scully gives a disbelieving look as she's handed the evidence bag with the suicide weapon, a broken record. Jack answers the phone and hands it to Scully, it's Mulder yet again. This time he's in his apartment, bouncing a basketball and drinking bad orange juice as he expounds on his latest theory, a scientific explanation this time. Maybe the people she saw in the video had something called "chorea" or "St. Vitus's dance". Alas, as Scully points out, that hasn't been around since the Middle Ages, thanks for nothing, Mulder, click. She hangs up on him. When Jack asks if her partner had any new insight, she firmly tells him, "no". For some reason, Buddy starts "The Hokey Pokey" record up, turns it off quickly and stands there, his back to the others, a look of shock on his face. Meanwhile, Scully tells Jack ("Can I call you 'Jack'?") that it's time they opened themselves up to extreme possibilities. But, as Jack says, Scully's on vacation, isn't she? Her face tells us she's given up that distant thought.

As the blasted "Hokey Pokey" song plays again, we see Polly sleeping in her room, the window nailed shut, her doll in her arms. Melissa creeps quietly into the room, heading for the doll. The record finishes, the doll opens her eyes as Mom gets closer, "Let's have fun". She backs away, terrified, as the record starts to play again. Melissa runs downstairs, stopping to sob at the kitchen sink. She hears her name called and looks up at the window behind the sink. A vision of Buddy the cop, bleeding profusely with blood all over his billy club greets her, "Help me". She backs away, crying.

We see a dockside scene, a man standing by the rails with his back to us, and the camera moves back to show the inside of a restaurant. A waitress appears carrying the biggest lobster I have ever seen. She puts it down in front of Scully and Jack, and she is flabbergasted, saying it looks like something out of a Jules Verne novel ("20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" etc.). As Jack wrestles with the lobster, Scully asks about Melissa's husband's death, anything strange about it? Well, Jack tells her, no one could ever figure out how he got that huge grappling hook shoved through his skull, but no, Melissa was never questioned about it. He nods at a boat tied up at the dock, "Working Girl". That's the boat he died on, if Scully's interested. She sees a man on the boat emptying a bucket of water and recognizes him as the man she first saw at the Super Saver.

Polly's in her room and puts her record (the only one she appears to own!) on her record player, yelling, "I want popcorn, Mommy!". Melissa looks in horror at the record as it begins to play (don't blame her) and says, "sure" as she backs out the door, turning around with a start to see Buddy, alive for now, behind her. He's come to take her in, believing she tried to kill the ranger with her car and has come back to kill Polly. He's also taking her "little brat" in, but the doll has other ideas as Polly turns her to face the cop, the eyes open and she says, "I want to play".

It's nighttime, as Scully and Jack talk to the old man on the boat about Melissa's husband's death. He tells them that people blamed the wife, but when asked who he blames, he just shakes his head and begins telling the tale we see in flashback. The guy was crazy about Melissa and overjoyed when they had the baby, Polly. We see him pulling up a lobster trap as the old man says they were out on Polly's last birthday. He opens the trap, smiling, says, "Look what Davy Jones sent my little Polly" (not the guy from The Monkees, silly, ever heard the phrase "Davy Jones locker" referring to the ocean?) and he pulls out The Doll. We're told he died three days later. Scully asks what he thinks killed him and in flashback form we see the husband pull up an empty lobster trap as he hears a voice say, "let's have fun". With the grappling hook in his hands, he looks around the boat, waking up the old man dozing. The man sees a huge shadow on the wall and hears, "I want to play". The next thing we see is the husband impaled through the skull with the hook. All together now ... ewwwwww! Back in the present, the old man says he knew there'd be trouble at the Super Saver when he saw, in Scully's words, "that little girl and her dolly".

As Scully and Jack walk back to the police car, her phone rings, it's Mulder, what a shock! He has yet another theory, but before he can pontificate, she hesitatingly asks him if he's heard anything in the occult about objects that direct human behaviour, such as, say, a doll. After joking about Chucky, the doll from the movie, "Child's Play", he says that yeah, it's well-known in New England especially and that early witches would have visions, why does she ask, surely she hasn't found a talking doll? Of course not, Scully bold-face lies to him. He jokes that she should look for a plastic ring with a string ... she rolls her eyes and hangs up on him. They're off to talk to Melissa.

Back at the house, Polly screams, "Where's my popcorn?!" and runs out of her room. Melissa is popping some Jiffy-Pop on the stove, a look of sheer terror on her face. We see the problem as the camera pans down to the kitchen floor. Buddy's blood-soaked billy club lies there in Buddy's lifeless hand, he's beaten to a pulp. The kid screams her request again, Mom whispers, "it's coming".

Having stuffed her face with her damn popcorn, I'm guessing, Polly's now asleep in bed with her beloved doll. Mom darts past her room and opens a hallway cabinet, grabbing a hammer and box of nails, shaking out a fistful of really big nails. She starts hammering nails into anything that doesn't move, the windows, the doors, the cat. Okay, not the cat, they don't have one, but if they did, boy ... ! The noise wakes up the kid and she stands at the top of the stairs, saying, "no more pounding", in her annoying whine. Melissa tells her to go back to bed and the doll's eyes fly open, "let's have fun". Mom turns to see an image of herself through the window, the claw end of the hammer sticking out of her bleeding head! Concern on her face, she hustles the kid back to bed.

The police car pulls up outside as Scully and Jack arrive, noticing Buddy's car in the driveway. Inside the house, Melissa closes Polly's door and heads for the cabinet. She puts the hammer on a shelf, then padlocks the door closed (like that'll help!). Next we see her knock over a container of flammable liquid and it pours out, drenching Buddy's lifeless form, which is still on the kitchen floor. Wouldn't you have moved it out back or something by now? Anyway, she gets a box of "Fast Flame" matches, as Jack starts banging on the front door and Scully peers through the window. Seeing nothing, she heads 'round to the back.

Meanwhile, Melissa is desperately trying to light match after match (fast flame indeed!), and as she finally succeeds the light illuminates Polly and her dolly. The doll's eyes open, "Don't play with matches", and the flame goes out. Yelling at Polly to go back to bed, she stands there lighting more matches, which are blown out (bend down and throw the match on the floor, you stupid woman, sheesh!). Scully's now at the back door and sees the crude nailing job Melissa's done to it, so she looks in the window and sees Melissa standing over Buddy's body, lighting more matches. As she calls for Jack, Melissa drops the box of matches and opens the knife drawer. The doll tells her, "Don't play with knives", and the drawer keeps slamming shut. Scully tells Jack that she's nailed the door shut and is trying to kill herself, so he begins ramming the door with his shoulder and feet. Melissa's going from drawer to drawer as they keep slamming shut. We see the hallway cabinet starting to rock and roll, uh oh, the hammer's trying to get out! The padlock breaks as the doll's voice says, "Let's play with the hammer". Now both Scully and Jack are hammering (no pun intended) at the door and Melissa's still trying to open more drawers. They finally break through the door and run upstairs where Melissa greets them brandishing the hammer like a weapon, "get away from me!". Scully tells her to put it down, then the kid appears as the doll says, "I don't like you anymore". Melissa slams the claw end into her forehead, yuck! As Scully very nicely asks Polly to give her the doll, Mom continues whacking herself in the head. Finally, Polly releases the doll, Scully grabs it and runs back downstairs into the kitchen.

As the doll chants, "I want to play", over and over again, Scully crams her into the micro, sets the timer for 3 minutes and at 2:52, the thing explodes into flames. Yeah, riiiight. As Mom and daughter hug warmly upstairs, Jack and Scully watch the doll burn, baby, burn. She lets out a sigh of relief.

Mulder's in the office, sharpening a pencil and lining it up with the other batch he's already sharpened as Scully walks in. He covers them with his hands and asks if she's feeling rested. She feels fine, apparently, and begins staring at his "I Want To Believe" poster, asking him where he got it. "Down on M Street at some head shop about five years ago.", he tells her, why? Oh, she just wants to send one to somebody. As she moves behind him to look at the poster more closely, Mulder pushes the pencil lineup into his drawer and asks who she wants it for. "Some guy ... Jack", she says, the emphasis on the name Jack as she drawls it out. She walks back to the front of his desk and he asks her if it has anything to do with the case she was working on. Yeah, that's right, the case, sure, that's the ticket. When asked, she says no she didn't help solve it, she was on vacation, remember? Just getting out of her own head for a few days. What about Mulder? Did he get anything done? Oh sure, he says, surprising what you can accomplish without incessant meddling or questioning into everything you do. His facade is broken, though, as pencils begin falling from the ceiling. Scully does a slow take and looks up to find the ceiling covered with sharpened pencils. Mulder says, "There's ... GOT to be an explanation." And Scully replies, "Oh, I don't know. I think some things are better left unexplained." As another pencil falls right on his pointy head (sorry about that!), Scully gives him a Look. A Look that says, "you foolish boy, what am I going to do with you?".

A fisherman pulls up a lobster trap, pleased with the lobster he's caught. He reaches in a little further and pulls out ... the charred doll! "I want to play.". We hear Mark Snow's tinkling version of "The Hokey Pokey" play. She's baaaaack ...

Notes

I couldn't help but be a mite frustrated with some of the postings in the newsgroup and mailing list. People, people, people ... look, here's the thing, don't EVER let other people dictate your opinions in Life, ever. I actually read a message stating that from now on someone was going to tape the show, then wait to see what the newsgroup thought before deciding whether to watch. Huh!? Life's far too short for this sort of nonsense, gang, stand up for yourself, form your own opinions and the majority be damned. I ask you, would this ep have attracted the attention and wrath it did if Stephen King's name hadn't been on it? I expected more, sure, but this was nowhere near as bad as popular opinion online proclaimed it.

You had your prerequisite gore (where else on TV are you going to see a hook pierce someone's skull quite like this?), a classic evil doll scenerio (I know it's been done before: "The Twilight Zone" with Telly Savalas; "Dead Of Night", a classic '45 movie with Michael Redgrave's character, a ventriloquist, battling his evil dummy; "Child's Play" with Chucky, which Mulder jokes about; "Magic" with Sir Anthony Hopkins; and, my personal nightmare, "Trilogy Of Terror" with Karen Black throwing her evil doll right into the oven, just like Scully does), Scully in jeans, a t-shirt AND a bubble bath, Mulder in his black Joe Boxer undies, a marriage proposal, HUGE lobsters ... come on, what more do you people want?

Okay, no, I didn't love this ep, but neither is it going in my bottom 5 list. I thought the gore and horror aspect was strong enough, although the mother and the girl did annoy me, and the Mulder and Scully telephone scenes were the glue that kept it all together. In my opinion, and that's all it amounts to, this was NOT a classic horror tale, it was a spoof of the same, pure and simple. The clues were everywhere, starting with the evil doll plotline that's been done to death. Stephen even took the mickey (spoofed) out of himself, for pete's sake! And did you catch the name of the lobster boat? "Working Girl", a David Duchovny movie from his early days. It was all a giggle, with some blood and spooky lighting thrown in for effect.

As they seemed to be for a lot of viewers, the telephone scenes between Mulder and Scully were a big highlight for me. Apart from the office scene they share near the end, the only time we see the agents together is via a phone. Bored out of his skull, maybe desperately missing and/or worrying about Scully, whatever, Mulder's calls *are* a plotpoint, I'm sure. It was a weekend, that's all, two days out of their lives and he can't leave the girl alone to her bubble baths and books? She needed to get out of her head, forget the x-files, her bout with cancer, her recently-found-now-dead child, heck, maybe even just forget about Mulder for 48 hours and he can't let her be. Is he bored, or worried? Jealous, maybe, as she sounds like she can handle this "case" alone? Whatever. The way I saw it, each scene had Mulder doing something "goofy"; rocking on the back of somebody's desk in his office (does Scully have a desk at last?!), drinking out-of-date orange juice from his empty fridge, bouncing a basketball in his apartment, watching pornos in the office (yes, he was, case closed) and heaving pencils into the ceiling. This all just cemented the spoof for me, Mulder would never be this at-a-loss, he'd have *something* better to do, surely. They were fun and that's how I viewed the whole hour.

As it has before in this series, the relationship gets switched; Scully's the believer, whether she wants to be or not. Was she really eyeing his "I Want To Believe" poster for Jack ... or herself? Hmmmm? I really don't think she wanted the poster for anyone, myself, this seemed to be merely a poke at trying to make Mulder "jealous", for lack of a better term. Make him think she was more involved with Jack than she really was. OR, maybe they were both just trying to prove that they had lives outside of the x-files. Also note how the conversations were very reminiscent of War of the Coprophages, even though in that ep, Scully actually DID things during her time away from Mulder.

Lots of plot problems, yeah, especially with the ending. Let's pour a flammable liquid all over the floor and set the micro on fire, sure. And why doesn't Scully just grab the damn doll instead of asking for it? For that matter, why couldn't Melissa have grabbed it earlier, especially after the people around her starting dropping like flies? She may have been scared of it, but she's a mother, fer gosh sakes, protect your kid and kill the dolly, Mom!

The title is a Spanish word that roughly translates as a slang term for ... ahem ... the action that two people who love each other do .... rhymes with "duck" ;-) Don't ask me why it was named this, doesn't make a lick of sense to me, I'm just reporting the facts. A lot of people, including the official site, seem to think the doll was called Chinga, but I've watched this thing a few times now and I never heard the word used. If I missed it, feel free to tell me.

Also note that for foreign fans, this ep has been renamed "Bunghoney". No, they haven't changed it here in North America, just in other countries. And, to make matters worse, no one has been able to come up with a translation of "Bunghoney"! All I know is that the word "bung" means a stopper or to stop something, for example, "He had bunged up his mouth that he should not have spoken these three years." (from "Don Quixote") Or, my own example, can we bung up this nonsense and just stick with one title!

Scully's vacation reading: "Affirmations For Women Who Do Too Much".

Autumn Tysko <http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/1411/main_rev.html> points out that the gas station Scully stops at must be awfully close to the Canadian border ... they're selling gas in litres, not gallons. Excellent catch, Autumn!

Finally, the question that's been nagging at our souls all these years has been answered. Just where DID Mulder get that damn poster of his?! According to him, "down on M Street at some head shop". For the younger viewers out there that asked, "what's a head shop, Mommy?", here's a wee history lesson: back in the 60's, when hippies ruled the land, shops were built to attract them and accomodate their needs. These stores specialized in black light posters, funky t-shirts and various drug paraphernalia such as roach clips, pipes, bongs and indoor growing apparatus. As the years passed the yuppies overtook the land, the hippies died off, John Lennon was killed and the 60's dream died a slow painful death ... but the head shops survived, bless 'em.

As a further matter of interest, there is a real M Street in Washington, D.C., in the Georgetown section, apparently a hip, happenin' hangout for the youngsters.

For them that ask, "Where have I seen him before?", here's the recycled actors from this ep:

Larry Musser (Jack Bonsaint) also appeared as Sheriff John Oakes in Die Hand, Die Verletzt, Denny Markham in Unrequited and the glorious Detective Manners in Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'.

William MacDonald (Buddy Riggs) played the Federal Marshal in The Host and Agent Dan Kazanjian in 2shy.

Gordon Tipple (Assistant Manager) was the Detective in Eve and the memorable Hepcat Helm in Humbug.

Harrison R. Coe (Dave the Butcher) also appeared as Government Man#2 in Apocrypha and Isaac Luria in Kaddish.

Dean Wray (Rich Turner) was also the Tow Truck Driver in Oubliette.

Henry Beckman (old man in store) had a recurring role as Det. Frank Briggs in Squeeze and Tooms.

Susannah Hoffman (Melissa Turner) appeared as Lisa Ianelli in Synchrony. No, she was NOT Mulder's sister, Samantha, in any previous eps. My fellow Canadian eagle-eyes recognized her from "Anne of Avonlea", and, last but not least, in a completely unrelated but cute coincidence, she was in the '89 movie, "Millennium". Cue "The Twilight Zone" music.

As for Jenny Lynn Hutcheson (Polly Turner), I admit defeat. According to a newspaper article about Vancouver actors Larry Musser and herself, it says, "If Musser always finds himself playing cops, Hutcheson might well be known as the "ghoul girl." In her first X-Files appearance, her TV father died. In her second role, she was dead. In Chinga -- her first speaking part on the show -- her character gets a doll, which is when the trouble starts." So her previous credits have been non-speaking, thus, her name's not in the credits. If you spot her, give me a shout.

Quotes

____________________

Scully's pumping gas (at a FULL SERVE gas station, no less), wearing her tight tourist t-shirt (it reads "Maine - The Way Life Should Be"), her cellular phone rings

Scully: "Scully."

Mulder: "Hey, Scully, it's me." (we see Mulder rocking on the back of a chair, whose chair, I'm not

sure, Scully's?)

Scully: "Mulder, I thought we had an agreement. We were both going to take the weekend off."

Mulder: "Right, right, right. I know. But I ... I just received some information about ... about a case.

A classic x-file ... classic. Wanted to share it with you."

Scully: "Mulder, I’m on vacation. The weather is clear. I'm looking forward to hitting the road and

breathing in some of this fine New England air."

Mulder: "You didn't rent a convertible, did you?"

Scully: "Why?"

Mulder: "Are you aware of the statistics of decapitation?" (cute ref to the conversation with Krycek

in Ascension)

Scully: "Mulder, I'm hanging up. I'm turning off my cell phone. I'm back in the office on Monday."

Mulder: "You shouldn't uh ... talk and drive at the same time, either. Are you aware of the statistics

...? Hello?" (Scully's hung up on him)

____________________________________________________________

People with closed-captioning see the name, "Attack of the Killer Africans; 9 p.m., Sunday.", another title for "World's Deadliest Swarms", what Mulder was supposedly watching on TV ... yeah, right! The captioning people obviously forgot to add "Bees", no offence intended to our African friends, I'm sure :-)

Mulder: (eating sunflower seeds, watching his porno, as the phone rings) "Mulder."

Scully: "Mulder, it's me."

Mulder: "I thought you were on vacation."

Scully: "I am. I’m up in Maine."

Mulder: "I thought you said you didn't want to be disturbed. You wanted to get out of your head for

a few days."

Scully: "I don't ... I mean, I do. What are you watching, Mulder?"

Mulder: "It's 'The World's Deadliest Swarms'. Um ... You said you were going to be unreachable.

What's going on?"

Scully: "I, uh ... I’m at a market here. I’m just trying to give the local PD a handle here."

Mulder: "A handle on what?"

Scully: "Well, I’m not quite sure how to describe it, Mulder. I didn't witness it myself, but there

seems to be some kind of an outbreak of people acting in a violent involuntary way."

Mulder: "Towards who?"

Scully: "Toward themselves."

Mulder: "Themselves?"

Scully: "Yeah. Beating at their faces, clawing at their eyes. One man is dead."

Mulder: "Dead? How?"

Scully: "Self-inflicted, it appears."

Mulder: "Huh ... it sounds to me like that's witchcraft or maybe some sorcery that you're looking for

there."

Scully: "No, I don't think it's witchcraft, Mulder, or sorcery. I've had a look around and I don't see

any evidence of anything that warrants that kind of suspicion."

Mulder: "Yeah, well, maybe you don't know what you're looking for."

Scully: "Like evidence of conjury or the black arts? Or shamanism, divination, Wicca, or any kind of

pagan or neopagan practice? Charms, cards, familiars, bloodstones or hex signs. Or any

of the ritual tableau associated with the occult; Santeria, Voudoun, Macumba, or any high

or low magic?"

Mulder: "Scully..."

Scully: "Yes?"

Mulder: "Marry me."

Scully: "I was hoping for something a little more helpful."

Mulder: "Well, you know, short of looking for a lady wearing a pointy hat riding a broomstick I think

you pretty much got it covered there."

Scully: "Thanks anyway."

____________________________________________________________

The phone rings at the Wee Laddies and Lassies Daycare where Jane has killed herself with a broken record. After Capt. Jack answers, he hands the phone to Scully.

Scully: "Hello?"

Mulder: "Hey, morning, sunshine."

Scully: "Mulder?"

Mulder: "Yeah. I was a little worried about you. I was wondering if you needed my help up there."

Scully: "Needed your help on what?"

Mulder: "I left you a message at the motel. You didn't get it?"

Scully: "I was up and out this morning. Mulder?"

Mulder: "Yeah?"

Scully: "What's that noise? Where are you?"

Mulder: "I'm at home. They're doing construction right out the window. Hold on a second. Fellas!

Can ya just keep it down for a second, maybe?! (we see Mulder, in black Joe Boxer undies

that look like shorts, bouncing a basketball off his coffee table. He tosses it aside, making

a noise as it hits something, he grimaces) Thank you. Yeah, hey. I was ... I was thinking

about this case. You know, maybe it's not witchcraft after all. Maybe there's a ... maybe

there's a scientific explanation."

Scully: "A scientific explanation?"

Mulder: "Yeah, a medical cause. Something called 'chorea'."

Scully: "Dancing sickness."

Mulder: "Yeah, St. Vitus's dance. (Mulder has walked over to his fridge, empty save for an orange

juice container, which he picks up and takes a slug from) It affects groups of people

causing unexplained outbursts of uncontrollable jerks and spasms."

Scully: "Yeah, and hasn't been seen or diagnosed since the Middle Ages."

Mulder: (Reacts to the obviously bad juice, looks at the best before date, OCT '97, and spits it

back into the container) "Oh, you're obviously not a fan of 'American Bandstand', Scully."

Scully: "Mulder?"

Mulder: "Yeah?"

Scully: "Thanks for the help." (she hangs up on him, again)

Mulder: "Hello?"

____________________________________________________________

Scully: "Scully."

Mulder: "Hey, I thought you weren't answering your cell phone?" (he's sitting at a desk, in front of

an upside-down map of Kentucky, for some reason, with what looks like a magnifying

glass lens on it, twirling the phone cord like a jump rope)

Scully: "Then why did you call?"

Mulder: "I ... uh ... I had a new thought about this case you're on. There's a viral infection that's

spread by simple touch ..."

Scully: "Mulder ... are there any references in occult literature to ... objects that have the power to

... direct human behavior?"

Mulder: "What types of objects?"

Scully: "Uh, like a doll, for instance."

Mulder: "You mean like Chucky?" (refers to the demon doll in the movie, "Child's Play")

Scully: "Yeah, kind of like that."

Mulder: (he begins to walk over to HIS desk, which begs the question yet again, whose desk was

he sitting at? Scully's?) "Well, yeah, the talking doll myth is well established in literature,

especially in New England. The fetish, or juju, is believed to pass on magical powers onto

its possessor. Some of the early witches were condemned for little more than proclaiming

that these objects existed. The supposed witch having premonitory visions and things ...

Why do you ask?"

Scully: "I was just curious."

Mulder: "You didn't find a talking doll, did you, Scully?"

Scully: "No, no. Of course not. Ahhh ..."

Mulder: "I would suggest that you check the back of the doll for a ... a plastic ring with a string on

it. (on his end of the phone, he makes a circle with his hands, on her end, she rolls her

eyes and shakes her head) That would be my first ... Hello?" (she's hung up on him, again!)

____________________________________________________________

We see Mulder sharpening a pencil, lining it up with a handful of others on his desk, the door opens and Scully enters

Mulder: "Oh, hey, Scully. How you doing? (he covers the pencils with his hands) How are you

feeling? Rested?"

Scully: "I feel fine." (she stares intently at his "I Want To Believe" poster)

Mulder: "What?"

Scully: "That poster... Where'd you get it?"

Mulder: "Oh, I got it down on M Street at some head shop about five years ago."

Scully: "Hmm."

Mulder: "Why?"

Scully: "No, I just ... wanted to send one to somebody."

Mulder: "You do?"

Scully: "Mm-hmm." (she starts to walk behind him, still staring at the poster)

Mulder: "Who?" (spoken louder than usual, with a fake little cough at the end, covering up the sound as he pushes the pencils into his drawer)

Scully: "Oh, just ... some guy. Jack. (sounds more like "Jaaaccckk", really drawn out. She walks back to the front of his desk) M street?"

Mulder: "Yeah. Hey, does this have something to do with that case you were working on?"

Scully: "Case? (she looks away, contemplating the case, then looks back) Uh, yeah. Yes, it does."

Mulder: "Did you solve it?"

Scully: "Me? No. No. I was, uh, I was on vacation. Just ... getting out of my own head for a few days. What about you? Did you, uh, get anything done while I was gone?"

Mulder: "Oh, God. I mean, it's amazing what I can accomplish without incessant meddling or questioning into everything I do. It's just ... (a pencil falls, he looks up and another one falls causing Scully to slowly look up at the ceiling ... covered in pencils hanging from their sharpened tips. More pencils begin falling on him) There's ... GOT to be an explanation."