This X-Information Episode Is Nonetheless One of many Scariest Workplace Horror Tales

Late in The X-Files‘ fifth season—only a few weeks earlier than the primary X-Files function movie hit theaters—viewers have been plunged into the terrifying insanity of “Folie à Deux.” A weary Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) trudges to Chicago to take a look at the most recent “monster of the week,” however his head snaps again into the sport when he realizes the monster in query simply is perhaps focusing on him subsequent.

Earlier than it flips its strategy to place Mulder in its crosshairs, “Folie à Deux”—directed by X-Information common Kim Manners, and written by future Breaking Dangerous and Higher Name Saul creator Vince Gilligan—introduces us to Gary Lambert (Caprica‘s Brian Markinson), a fairly strange man working a soul-sucking telemarking job for a vinyl siding firm. The calls cycle continuously as Gary reads from a exact script and endures nagging directions to “dial and smile,” all the higher to hook new clients.

It’s boring and demanding however not precisely poisonous—till Gary senses an alarming presence lurking within the workplace: an enormous insect-like creature, masquerading as his boss and turning his co-workers into remote-controlled zombies. It scares him sufficient to audio-tape a warning a couple of monster stalking VinylRight workers, which is why the FBI’s resident spooky children Mulder and Scully (Gillian Anderson) get handed the case.

However there’s pressure within the FBI workplace too. Mulder and his personal boss, FBI Assistant Director Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), are enduring a surly patch of their relationship—not for the primary or final time. Mulder’s irritated the Bureau sees him as “monster boy” (to be truthful, there’s a stable cause for that), and tells Scully he can deal with this “jerk-off task” by himself. However as soon as he flounces off to Chicago, he realizes there’s extra to this case than he realized, and he does really want her assist.

In the meantime, Gary’s reaching his breaking level as he observes his co-workers systematically reworking into dead-eyed automatons. It’s all of the paranoia of Invasion of the Physique Snatchers, right down to Gary being the one one that realizes what’s occurring.

Even the viewers can’t inform if what Gary sees is actual or the results of a really troubled thoughts… till Gary takes the complete workplace hostage, together with a visiting Mulder. Within the chaos Mulder realizes he can additionally see that Gary’s boss is, actually, really an enormous insect hellbent on assembling a military of human drones.

There’s a certain quantity of metaphor at play right here, as Gary—who finally ends up being shot to dying within the standoff after killing an “contaminated” co-worker—rails towards a creature who “needs to remove who we’re and management us.” It might be a supernatural menace; it might be capitalism. Precise human telemarketers have been largely changed by robo-calls nowadays, however in 1998 when the episode aired, everybody nonetheless had a land line and customarily picked up when the telephone rang. In a room full of cubicles full of individuals all studying the identical pitch again and again, you may see how “dead-eyed automatons” isn’t too far of a leap.

However that is The X-Information, so one thing eerie all the time has to creep in. Even Mulder is skeptical about Gary’s claims at first, however any doubts evaporate as soon as he catches a glimpse of the monster himself. “I noticed it too,” he confesses to Scully. She wonders if it’s maybe a folie à deux, that means that Mulder was so affected by the expertise of being held hostage that he’s now sharing Gary’s delusions.

However Mulder’s inclined to level to a bigger conspiracy. Perhaps Gary’s boss, the in any other case unmemorable Greg Pincus (John Apicella), is definitely a manifestation of evil able to utilizing camouflaging thoughts methods to hide its presence?

Turns on the market’s some historical past to again up this admittedly wild-sounding notion. Gary’s audio warning to VinylRight evoked the phrase “hiding within the mild,” one thing that’s popped up in comparable X-Information from the previous. With some digging, Mulder realizes Pincus has a geographical connection to lots of the previous incidents.

True to kind, Scully doesn’t instantly agree with Mulder; what’s extra, she’s not eager on the concept of legitimizing Gary’s crazy-guy discuss, particularly since he murdered a man on the best way out. However Mulder is unusually honest right here. He even begs Scully to imagine him, since she’s his “one in 5 billion”—the uncommon one that really understands the place he’s coming from. But it surely takes an irregular post-mortem for Scully to appreciate that Mulder is true, and one thing extraordinarily bizarre is certainly taking place.

Together with this, an more and more livid Skinner wonders if this would be the case that lastly sees Mulder booted from the FBI right into a padded room—and Mulder does find yourself strapped right down to a hospital mattress at one level, frantically shrieking on the nurse to set him free so he can shield himself from the zombie-creating critter.

By season 5, X-Information followers had come to understand Mulder’s extraordinarily open-minded means of trying on the unexplained. But it surely’s not that far-fetched to think about that after years of not being believed, and years of witnessing a few of the most weird discoveries within the historical past of the FBI, his personal psychological well being would undergo. Perhaps even begin to crack?

It takes Scully’s intervention to confess that whereas she will be able to’t clarify precisely what occurred, there’s sufficient concrete proof surrounding the case to substantiate that Mulder hasn’t gone full cuckoo. Skinner admits “I’m at a little bit of a loss right here,” however regardless of his frustration with Mulder—which spirals right into a bodily struggle at one level within the episode—he’s truthful sufficient to simply accept Scully’s judgment as rational and cheap.

On the finish of the story, with a still-perplexed Scully suggesting perhaps she and Mulder are those experiencing the folie à deux, we see a brand new name middle, filled with anxious workers making an attempt to “dial and smile” with out dropping their minds. Besides, in fact, there’s a basic X-Information button to push, as one very unfortunate man out of the blue catches sight of what seems to be like an enormous, freaky insect scuttling across the workplace.

The X-Information is streaming on Hulu.

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