The X Files - Unruhe

 Again with the Scully being kidnapped shit. God, after three seasons of that crutch for suspense, you'd think they would go different routes. Lots of television, and even the very best of writers like Gilligan couldn't help themselves. As much as I adore this show, relying on Scully being kidnapped over and over -- and Mulder coming to her rescue over and over -- is just such a defense mechanism to fall back on. In saying that, other than Scully being kidnapped, I thought "Unruhe" was a really neat episode. Pruitt Taylor Vince -- I know very well from the likes of "Identity" and "JFK" -- is yet another marvelous face in that gallery of troubled souls who occupy horror films and thrillers perfectly fit for "The X-Files". Vince lobotomizes women he finds while managing construction sites, believing that if he penetrates the location inside the mind that harvests "howlers", he stops their perpetual evil continuously tormenting them. Now, the "psychic photography" is a wild concept offered as the plot device in "Unruhe" (German for "unrest"), where those prepared to be lobotomized leave behind visions of ghouls, an extended shadowy figure serving as a god-like presence over victims, the face of Vince's deceased dentist father, and the victim herself on a photograph...mostly on an old camera found in a department store on a shelf behind the counterman. A postal worker preparing to flee the city (due to criminal activity) and an attorney's assistant are both "chosen to be saved" by Vince, one found walking in a daze due to the horrible lobotomy, the other found dead in the woods. And, sure enough, when caught by Scully at a worksite, and later in the interrogation room, Vince comes to an understanding in his warped mind that Scully needs to be saved from the howlers as well.

So basically these photos are of the horrors of Vince's mind. He's tormented by what happened to his sister, who committed suicide in what Mulder and Scully perceive to be because of their father's molestion of her. That is why Vince attacked his father, went to a mental institution for it, and, after his release, made sure to take care of him until his death. With his father confined to a wheelchair and never able to function on his own, that guilt (along with the effects of what happened to his sister, blaming himself for not protecting her) really had a lasting, negative impact on Vince. Vince takes the gun of a cop when the dumb cop's back was turned, shooting the guy and escaping. The printout of the cop's face with the gunshot wound is creepy, as are the photographs that seem to serve as a snapshot of Vince's tortured psyche when he looks at women he plans to lobotomize. The episode is telegraphed on the whole premise that Mulder knows about psychic photography and uses each picture from Vince's Gerry's mind as investigative tools. In fact a photograph of Scully, made when she goes to Mulder, near one of those photo booths, helps Mulder eventually locate her, using "fingers" from a hand in Scully's photo and facts about Gerry (his father was a dentist and the location of Gerry's father's grave is where he parks his RV) as assistance.

Yes, Gilligan's script has conveniences in it that allow Gerry to get away when in custody, Scully to be kidnapped by him (and given time with Gerry to "emphasize", and hold him off from immediately lobotomizing her by speaking to him in German and talking to him about his sister, using "that Sigmund Freud stuff"), and Mulder reading the psychic photography (along with researching Gerry's past), but it is a show, so I am one of those willing to forgo such allowances. I think the final scene where Scully is at her computer, typing up her "field report" really made a difference. Gillian Anderson really lands it with her facial expressions while typing away. She shows that Scully has really been beaten up emotionally, this experience having taken a toll on her. One other scene that punches home how devastating this case is to her: when the second victim in found in the woods, Scully just wants to leave while Mulder has that itch he wants to scratch in understanding why psychic photography is left behind Vince...she's done with that shit and feels so defeated. Obviously, Vince's Gerry had other plans. 4/5