"Squeeze"
Written by Glen Morgan and James Wong
Directed by Harry Longstreet


In which we are introduced to Eugene Victor Tooms, frequent dinner guest of Hannibal Lecter, and the full extent to which Mulder’s reputation has fallen

Synopsis - Analysis - Observations


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"Gee, Mulder, we just met, and already with the bondage?"


Synopsis

The episode begins with the murder of a businessman named George Usher in his locked office in Baltimore. The murderer somehow climbs out of a ventilation duct, kills Usher, and then escapes through the same duct.

A couple days later, Dana Scully is having lunch in Washington with an old friend from her academy days, Tom Colton. He mentions that one of their classmates managed to land a supervisory position in the NYC office for foreign intelligence. Colton feels that he ought to be in a similar position, even though he has made a name for himself in the VCU (called the Violent Crimes Section here) since graduation. In a none too subtle fashion, Colton mentions that he is working on a case involving three murders with no apparent connection, other than the fact that the victims all have had their livers removed by hand, and there is no apparent point of entry into the locations of the murders. Colton asks Scully to see what Mulder thinks of the case, but makes it clear that this is merely a consult.

As Mulder and Scully arrive at Usher’s office, it becomes clear that Mulder’s reputation has taken some serious hits in the VCU since his work on the X-Files began. “Spooky” has gone from a reference to his profiling skills to an insult. Mulder responds with dry humor, and promptly finds an odd, elongated fingerprint on the ventilation duct grating.

Back at the office, Mulder shows Scully similar fingerprints recovered in past murders. According to the X-Files, five of the murders took place in 1963, and another five murders took place in 1933. There is also a case involving an extracted liver in 1903. Mulder asserts that with three victims already down, there must be two more to go. Scully is doubtful, but Mulder reminds her that fingerprints are unique. He also claims that since the X-File cases go back to 1903, they have the jurisdiction. Scully reminds him that Blevins stuck him in the basement because his theories weren’t wanted by the Bureau. Mulder suggests that they run their own parallel investigation while Colton runs his own.

Scully develops a general profile of a man with superior intelligence, 25 – 35 years old (of course!), likely posing as a maintenance worker to cover his knowledge of the ventilation ductwork in the city buildings. When she reports this to Colton’s group, they invite her to join their effort. She winds up staking out the parking garage of Usher’s building. Mulder stops by and asserts that it’s a waste of time, since the killer wouldn’t return to the same location to kill again. Mulder believes that the killer is motivated by the challenge of seemingly impossible entry. Just as Mulder invites Scully to leave with him, noise is heard from the ventilation system. They call in back-up, and when Scully calls for whomever to come out, a man wearing a maintenance uniform emerges. Mulder is shocked.

The man is taken to the Bureau office in Baltimore, where he receives a polygraph test. His name is Eugene Victor Tooms. Besides the standard questions submitted by Colton’s team, several questions regarding Tooms’ age and the incidents in 1933 and 1963 are submitted by Mulder. Tooms appears to pass the test based on the standard questions, and Colton and his team are satisfied. But Mulder points out that Tooms’ reactions to his questions indicate that he lied. Colton’s team balks at Mulder’s interpretation, and they release Tooms from custody.

Scully confronts Mulder, saying that he must have known that he was pushing Colton’s buttons, and he admits to it. He also tells her that he appreciates that she respects the journey, if not always the destination, and that if she wants to go work with Colton, he would understand. But Scully knows Mulder well enough by now to recognize that he must have had a reason for submitting those questions, and she decides to stick with him. Mulder shows her that the recent fingerprints taken of Tooms, when elongated and thinned, match the print taken from Usher’s office.

When a fourth victim is found murdered, Colton is completely stymied, but still unwilling to entertain Mulder’s theories. When Colton tries to have Mulder removed, Scully defends his right to be at the crime scene. Mulder is sure that it is Tooms, and he notices that an item is missing from the mantle of the victim’s fireplace. Mulder shows Scully records from 1903 showing that a Eugene Victor Tooms lived at an address on Exeter Street in 1903, right below the first reported victim. They search through the records, but they cannot find any links between the Tooms of 1903 and the Tooms of 1993. But Mulder does get the name of the officer who investigated the 1933 murders.

Frank Briggs is now a very old man, but he is still alive, and remembers the incidents vividly. In fact, he is still haunted by the presence of evil at those other murder scenes. He has managed to collect a great deal of evidence, official and unofficial, regarding the past murders. He mentions that his suspect also removes personal items from the victims, and shows the agents a picture of Tooms from 1963. He looks identical to the Tooms of the present day.

Mulder and Scully go to the address given for Tooms, and find an empty room where Tooms is supposed to live. Behind a dirty mattress up against one wall, there is a hole leading into an old coal cellar. They find a small table covered with dozens of objects, including an object that matches what was taken from the latest victim’s home. They notice a wall that appears to be deteriorating, and they find that it is actually made of strips from rags and newspaper, held together by bile. Mulder theorizes that this is where Tooms hibernates on a 30 year cycle, and that when he awakes, he needs to devour five livers to keep himself alive during the next cycle. Scully doesn’t believe it, but agrees that Tooms must come back to this spot eventually. Mulder suggests that they request a surveillance team outside the building. On the way out, Scully snags her necklace on something, but in reality, Tooms has been hiding in the rafters all the while…and he has chosen Scully as his next victim.

Two agents come to take over surveillance from Mulder, but it is obvious that they’re not taking the duty very seriously. A few hours later, Colton stops by to inform Scully that he has taken the surveillance off the building, claiming that it is a waste of time. After making it clear that he feels Scully has been ruined by her work with Mulder, she stalks out of the room. Her attempts to contact Mulder from her apartment fail, so she decides to clean up. Tooms is already waiting outside.

Mulder is down in Tooms’ lair, and recognizes Scully’s necklace. Scully becomes aware of Tooms’ presence when a lump of his bile falls on her from the ceiling. Tooms attacks Scully, and manages to tackle her, tearing her clothes away from her stomach. Mulder arrives just in time to save Scully, and together they manage to subdue the killer.

In Tooms’ prison cell, we see the mutant using newspaper to build a nest in his cell. Mulder remarks about how people put bars on their windows and spend money on security systems, only to have people like Tooms out there. They leave, and sometime later, a guard brings Tooms his next meal. As the guard slides the food through the narrow slot in the door, Tooms stares at the opening…and smiles.

Analysis

This episode marks the beginning of a trend that would ultimately prove to be a weakness for the series: the contrast between episodes centering on the series mythology and the so-called “Monster of the Week” episodes, often denoted as MOTWs. In the earlier seasons, when the mythology episodes were crafted with care to avoid long-term consequences, the difference between the two kinds of episodes was minor. It would only be later, when the events of mythology episodes would become increasingly pervasive, that the difference would create issues of character and plot continuity.

In terms of this episode, there is a bit more continuity with the first two episodes than it might seem at first glance. While the events themselves are relatively self-contained, the real continuity appears to be within the realm of the relationship between Mulder, Scully, and the rest of the Bureau. In the first two episodes, Scully was still the outsider looking in at Mulder’s off-kilter world, and based on Scully’s comments regarding his reputation, he was still respected for his profiling abilities.

But that was sometime in March 1993, and this is set nearly six months later, following the incident at Ellens Air Base in “Deep Throat”. It’s probably not hard to believe that Mulder’s actions in the last episode, and Scully’s inability to come up with anything substantial during their investigation, had some repercussions. One would think that Blevins would have been contacted by the military, as part of the conspiracy or simply because of the actions of his agents, and rumors of what happened would have spread. Besides Mulder’s reputation, the references by Colton and the other agents of the VCU could have been a direct response to stories of Mulder’s actions in Idaho.

This makes more sense than accepting the premise that Mulder is suddenly far less respected than he was a couple episodes ago. Also, it might explain why Mulder is now working on the X-Files apart from his work with the VCU, something that doesn’t track with the initial description of the X-Files as a side project. Between the incidents in Oregon and Idaho, Mulder might have worn out the patience of the VCU, leaving him to be assigned permanently to the X-Files.

If Mulder was now operating as a lone wolf, no longer with the VCU, then it explains the attempts by Colton to woo Scully over to that department. Without the benefit of knowing that there is a reason behind her assignment to the X-Files, it would appear that Scully has allowed herself to be maneuvered into a position that can only hurt her career. If Mulder has been removed from his originally assigned section, then it makes sense that Scully is in a similar situation. So her friend, and those within the VCU who see her value, would certainly want to head that off, even if it’s just for their own personal gain.

Interestingly, even though they have little respect for his theories, and might even see him as a “black sheep” of sorts, the VCU seems to remember that Mulder was known for his innate profiling skills. Otherwise, why would Colton have asked Scully to review the information with Mulder? We know from later episodes that his profiling ability is still regarded as an asset. They joke with him at first, and it’s only after he refuses to back down or sugarcoat his hunches that they become hostile. It’s how one might expect them to act, if he had been the star of the unit, only to fall from grace and embarrass them.

I don’t know that this evolving nature of the X-Files from “side project” to autonomous department was intentional, but in any case, it has certainly taken a huge leap in this episode. But what we also see is the beginning of Scully’s slow but sure conversion. She is still regarded well enough to be courted by other departments, but her own attitudes no longer remain wedded to the straight and narrow definitions of typical forensics. It’s also interesting to see that Scully still has friends at this point, people outside of her association with Mulder that she can talk to and interact with. It paints an unsettling picture when you realize just how isolated Scully’s world becomes, until her life with Mulder is all she has left.

The idea that Tooms is a genetic mutant raises some interesting questions. Certainly Tooms cannot be a result of the Project experiments, having been born more than 50 years before those programs began. But the comments regarding ethnic cleansing make me wonder if this is some kind of early reference to eugenics experiments. Historically, the later experiments conducted in Nazi Germany, which took place beginning in the 1920s, followed in the footsteps of more primitive programs with similar intent around the world over several decades. Tooms could have been the result of some of the earliest experiments, a result of the ideals of racial purity which lie at the heart of ethnic cleansing rationale.

At the same time, if human breeding experimentation was not responsible for Tooms, then there is another explanation that falls at the periphery of the series mythology. As we later learn, there are latent “alien” genes that are inactive in most humans, genes that are later held as the source for various psychic abilities. One combination of human and “alien” DNA brought about telepathic abilities in Gibson Praise, but could another combination have been responsible for Eugene Victor Tooms?

One way or another, Tooms is an example of a creature that appears to be like everyone else, very human in appearance, but ultimately someone without human concerns or taboos. After all, how can Tooms have any connection with human society as a whole? Most of his life is spent in hibernation, and the rest of his time is spent preparing for the next cycle. It’s a mutation with absolutely no purpose, leading to latent instincts with just as little sense behind them. He hibernates simply because that’s what his biology demands, and the rest of his behavior is predicated on the need to survive the next 30 year cycle.

Of all the “monsters” encountered on the “X-Files”, the ones that are the most frightening are the human monsters. The terror of the conspiracy is that there are people that could think in such a way, and knowing that those characters are based on real people, some of whom hold power today. The terror of serial killers comes from the knowledge that it’s a matter of human psychology, the workings of the human mind. In this case, we are watching the actions of something inhuman, but it wears the mask of humanity, and so we wonder…couldn’t that be anyone? The fear is made more real.

The only weakness of this episode comes through the direction, and the conception of the supporting characters. While there are certainly some frightening moments in this episode, there is a remarkable lack of dread until the very end. Later episodes prefect the dark atmosphere that would become a hallmark of the series, but it’s not quite in place yet. The tension is mostly within the situation, rather than in the texture of the episode itself.

The supporting characters don’t help in terms of creating the necessary tension, because they are simply too polarized. As understandable as their attitudes might be, they come across as a little too extreme. It’s the kind of thing one expects in the first season of a series, because the writers are still balancing out the relationship of the characters and how they interact with the world around them. But that could have been done with a little more subtlety.

Still, this is one of those classic episodes that comes to mind when thinking of the best MOTW episodes. It also has the distinct pleasure of being the first Morgan-Wong episode of the series, and there are elements here that follow through all of their material. Their involvement, in all likelihood, took what might have been a mediocre offering and made it solid.

Observations

- I noticed that the ventilation cover opens left to right in most shots, but for some reason, it swings upward when Tooms begins to emerge!

- Scully looks a bit more glamorous in this episode, doesn’t she? And what’s with her hair color changing from scene to scene? I think they ought to check *her* DNA!

- “Spooky? Do you think I’m spooky?”

- That whole Reticula scene is simply priceless!

- “And he should stick out in a crowd with ten inch fingers…”

- So why was Mulder visiting Scully on her stake-out in the first place? Seems odd that he should just happen by, even for territorial reasons.

- You can tell how Tooms just slightly reacts to the first question about the 1933 murders.

- “Maybe I run into so many people who are hostile, just because they can’t open their minds to the possibilities, that sometimes the need to mess with their heads outweighs the millstone of humilition.”

- What’s with that little touch of Scully’s necklace by Mulder? Is it just to highlight the face that she is wearing it, so it makes sense later in the episode? Must have raised the eyebrows of the early shippers, hmm?

- Of course, this isn’t the same necklace that she’s wearing during every other episode!

- Love that fingerprint scene…very simply, but extremely effective.

- “So what is this, the Anti-Waltons?”

- Also, we have Mulder in glasses again. It’s a small thing, but I like it!

- Those damned microfiche machines make me seasick, too…

- It’s always a good idea to hang out alone in strange underground lairs without telling anyone where you’re going to be.

- “Is there any way I can get it off my fingers quickly without betraying my cool exterior?”

- Maybe I’ve been watching “Trading Spaces” too much, but what is with that bathroom tile, Scully? Man, is that a nasty color…

- Not quite sure how ethnic cleansing is supposed to fit this episode, other than the fact that it was very much a household topic in 1993.

Overall, this is one of the true classic MOTW episodes, and it sets the bar pretty high for the episodes that have little to do with the series mythology. Still, it’s not quite as tightly directed as the best episodes are, and the supporting players are a bit too stilted at times.

I give it an 8/10.


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