The X-files

Demons
Episode: 4X23
First aired:5/11/97
Written by:R.W. Goodwin
Directed by:Kim Manners

This is one of my favorite episodes. It is so powerful, mainly since it deals with Mulder's search for his sister and how far he would go for the truth. It's very dark and somewhat disturbing, but follows what a true X-files episode should be.

We see Mulder's flashback to childhood, in a dream like state he sees Samantha calling him and his mother crying out. Mulder wakes up in a motel room. He obviously does not know where he is and finds blood on his shirt. He calls Scully, waking her. He tells her he doesn't know what happened but that he's in Rhode Island and that there is blood on his shirt that is not his.

Scully drives up to Rhode Island, the the motel room, only to find Mulder naked and shivering, sitting in the shower saying he can't get warm. Scully get's him out telling him that he is in shock. While checking him over, Mulder tells her as much as he can. It seems that Mulder has been there for three days, that he packed a bag, and that two rounds have been fired from his gun. Mulder has no recolection of anything. Scully wants to take Mulder to a hospital to have him checked out for head injurys but Mulder is insitant on figuring out if a crime had been committed.

Scully talks to the hotel manager and figures out that Mulder drove a car that is not his. Seeing the car they find blood on the steering wheel and the car is registered under David Cassandra married to Amy Cassandra.

They travel to the Cassandra's house nearby and talk to the housekeeper who says they are not home. In the house Mulder sees a painting of an old house and seems to recognize it. The housekeeper says its the house that Amy grew up in and that she paints it all the time. Mulder feels strongly that he has been there before and they get the address.

While walking to the house, Mulder experiences a suden seizure and falls to the ground. We again see what he sees, another flashback. Mulder sees his parents arguing and a young Cigarette-Smoking Man standing, watching. Mulder wakes up on the ground with Scully standing over him, looking concerned. She tells him that he grabbed his head and fell to his knees and was unresponsive. He tells her that he is fine and that he had a very vivid flashback to his childhood. Against Scully's wishes to get him to a specialist, they continue and walk inside the house. Scully finds Amy and David Cassandra, both have been shot a point blank range and are dead.

The police arrive to the scene and take Mulder. There is now so much evidence linking Mulder with the Cassandra's death that the police feel that it was Mulder.

While performing the autopsy on Amy Cassandra, Scully notes a small scab wound on the hairline of the victim.

Mulder talks to the police and sticks with his story that he has no recollection of Amy or David and that he did not shoot them. The police present evidence from his gun, the blood on his shirt, and fingerprints in the house. Mulder is arrested.

Scully meets with Mulder in the jail to tell him that she thinks she has evidence to clear him. She found a drug, Ketamine, in Amy that can cause hallucinations. The same drug was found in Mulder. Suddenly, they here a shot fired from within the jail. Scully rushes to find an officer has shot himself in the head.

Scully learns that the officer had become a joke on the force. Scully finds evidence of pronounced mental illness. The officer also has a puncture wound similar to Amy's. Scully feels that they knew each other and that the deaths are linked. Scully later finds that Amy had believed she was an alien abductee.

In his cell, Mulder suffers from another flashback, this time seeing his mother calling out to Samantha. He wakes up and demands to speak to Scully.

Scully comes to tell him that a forensics report has shown that the blodd splatter patter on his shirt does not correspond to the deaths of Amy or David. Scully now believes that Mulder contacted Amy before because he had heard that she had begun psychiatric treatment that was effectively recovering her past. Mulder is released and they go to the office where Amy recieved her treatment.

At the office, they find Mulder's car. They meet with Dr. Goldstien, who tells Mulder they have not met before. Goldstein explains to them that he used a method of therapy that simulates an electrical impulse in the brain, using light and sound. After the meeting, Mulder now thinks that Goldstien is lying and that he has met him before. Scully thinks that Mulder underwent the same treatment and that the seizures are the result of it.

In the parking lot Mulder suddenly has another flashback and sees his mother crying out again. He wakes up on the ground once more. Scully is determined to get him to a doctor but Mulder is insistant that the memories are allowing him to access others about his childhood, about his sister. He and Scully drive to his mothers' house.

Mulder confronts his mother and accuses her of lying to him about Samantha, that she was forced to choose her. He also claims that she was unfaithful to his father. Mrs. Mulder is angry and upset about the allegations, even slaps Mulder, who leaves the house and drives off with out Scully.

Mulder goes to see Goldstien and confronts him. But Mulder asks him to finnish the job. We see another of his flashbacks where Mulder sees his mother, Samantha, and CSM. Later, Goldstien is put under arrest but Mulder is no where to be found. Scully yells at him and Goldstien tells her that Mulder went to "exorcise his demons."

Scully finds Mulder at his old house in Quonochontaug. Mulder has a gun and is being attacked my many seizures. Scully gently confronts him but Mulder lapses in and out of the seizures (we see them). Scully tells him to put down the gun but Mulder yells at her. Suddenly he points the gun at her screaming to get away. Scully tries to reason with him, by telling him that he has been given a drug and that the memories may not be his own. In a tense moment, Mulder fires his gun, but behind Scully. He drops it and balls up crying. Scully gently leans on him.


Important Quotes:
Scully -- It'S almost 5:00 AM. Is something wrong?"
Mulder -- "I think so."
Scully -- "Where are you?"
Mulder -- "I think I'm in a... a motel room in Providence, but..."
Scully -- "Where?"
Mulder -- "Rhode Island."
Scully -- "What are you doing there?"
Mulder -- "I don't know. There's... t-there's blood all over me."
Scully -- "Are you hurt, Mulder?"
Mulder -- "I don't think so. I don't think it's my blood."

Scully -- "Mulder? Mulder, can you hear me? What happened?"
Mulder -- "I don't know. It just hit me."
Scully -- "You fell to your knees and you grabbed your head, like you were in terrible pain. You were completely non-responsive. Do you remember any of that?"
Mulder -- "No. I remember what I saw."
Scully -- "What do you mean, what you saw?"
Mulder -- "I had a very vivid flashback to my childhood. Except, I was there."
Scully -- "Do you remember anything else?"
Mulder -- "No, just that it was very real."
Scully -- "Your heart is racing."
Mulder -- "What do you think it was?"
Scully -- "It was some kind of a seizure. Some kind of acute physiological disturbance. I couldn't tell if you lost consciousness but, it was definitely some kind of clonic event. Kind of an electrical storm in the brain."
Mulder -- "Brought on by what?"
Scully -- "That's what a specialist is going to have to tell you, Mulder."
Mulder -- "I feel really good right now."
Scully -- "Mulder, you are not really good."

Scully -- "You're jailing an innocent man."
Curtis -- "Yeah, well, this way he won't get lost for two days and do something else he won't remember."

Scully -- "Mulder?"
Mulder -- "I'm fine."
Scully -- "No, I am not going to take that for an answer. You do not belong at work. You need to be somewhere where you can be monitored. You are a danger to yourself, and a danger to me. Are you hearing me?"
Mulder -- "Give me the car keys."
Scully -- "No, you're not driving. You're not doing anything until these symptoms go away."
Mulder -- "Scully, I don't want these symptoms to go away. Whatever's happening to me, whatever treatment I've received, is allowing me to go back into my unconscious. The truth is in there, recorded, and I've gotten access to it. What happened to my sister--the reason she was taken--is becoming clear to me, and I need to know that. Now give me the keys."
Scully -- "To go where?"
Mulder -- "To my mother's, in Greenwich."
Scully -- "Okay... but I'm driving."

Mulder (holding gun to Scully) -- "Get away!"
Scully -- "Are you going to shoot me, Mulder? Is that how much this means to you? Mulder, listen to me. You have been given a powerful hallucinogen. You don't know that these memories are yours. This is not the way to the truth, Mulder. You've got to trust me."
Mulder -- "Shut up!"
Scully -- "Put down the gun. Let it go."

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