02x20 - Humbug

[bunniefuu]

Oh, Daddy. Cut it out! I knew it was you, Dad.

Quit picking on your brother. He loves you. No, I don't.

I'm glad you're back home, Dad. Not as glad as I am.

Did you see a lot of weird stuff this year?

Yep. It was the weirdest show ever.

But your mother thinks you're getting ready for bed.

If she finds you guys still in the pool, she's gonna k*ll me. So come on!

Quit your whinin'. Come on, or there's no bedtime story.

Out you go. That's it.

What the hell...?

What happened? Nothing you can ascertain from that photo.

He suffered from ichthyosis, a congenital skin disease...

..characterised by the shedding of the epidermis as scales.

This shows the entry wound of the undetermined w*apon.

No other injuries were inflicted. No organs were removed or cannibalised...

..and there's no signs of sexual molestation.

That's 48 att*cks over the last 28 years,...

..occurring in every state in the continental US almost,...

..the first in Oregon, the last five in Florida.

Victims range from all different age groups, races. Both male and female.

The mutilations appear so motiveless one would suspect a form of ritual,...

..yet they adhere to no known cult.

A serial k*ller would normally escalate the level of v*olence of his att*cks...

..over such an extended period of time.

So what do you think, Scully? What are your initial thoughts?

Imagine going through your whole life looking like this.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,...

..I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me...

..all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Jerald Glazebrook,...

..beloved husband, father, friend and entertainer.

We mourn not only the passing...

..of a man who overcame the obstacles of his earthly incarnation,...

..but also the passing of the love that dwelled within his all-too-human heart.

We mourn the passing of the admiration and the respect...

..he instilled in all of his professional colleagues.

We mourn the passing of the laughter and the enjoyment...

..he brought each audience who saw him.

For although Jerry was a world-renowned escape artist,...

..there is one strongbox from which none of us can escape.

Help me.

Put him down over there.

Not having known the deceased personally, I'm in no position to perform a proper eulogy.

I'm sure he was a nice guy, et cetera, et cetera.

But as an admirer of his work, I am in a position...

..to perform an impromptu tribute in his honour.

Namely, ramming this spike into my chest!

Don't you have any respect? I think I hit my left ventricle!

Get back, fascists!

Get him outta here!

I can't wait for the wake.

On his VICAP form, Jerald Glazebrook was listed as an "artist".

Jerry was an artist. The best escape artist since Houdini.

He should've been headlining Vegas, but his condition kept him on the sideshow circuit.

I didn't realise that sideshows still existed. There are two or three still around.

I got the impression that Glazebrook wasn't the only performer residing here.

The town was founded in the '20s when some of Barnum & Bailey's troupes...

..came down in the winter off-seasons.

This town's history might help explain our case's history.

A sideshow performer would have toured much of the country.

And their isolation from society, caused by their physical deformities,...

..could have built up pathological resentment...

Now, now, hold on a second.

Around here we refer to them as "very special people".

They may be different on the outside, but it's what's inside that counts.

And on the inside... they're as normal as anybody.

Until arrest, many serial K*llers...

..are considered by their friends and family to be quite normal.

If you regard them as normal, you must consider the possibility...

..that they are capable of committing these crimes.

It's been my experience that other people have a harder time...

..accepting these people's deformities than they do themselves.

Sheriff, uh... what is this?

This design here. It's copyrighted by Hepcat Helm. Is that a local artist?

A bit too local. His workplace is right behind my station house.

Do you think that we could meet Hepcat?

Watch my eyes when you light them up Listen to me whine like a heart shook up Hepcat.

Hepcat!

I'm in a frenzy

Who are the rubes? These are FBI agents Scully and Mulder.

This is Hepcat Helm. He operates a carnival fun house.

Oh, man! How many times have I told you not to call it that?

It's not some rinky-dink carny ride. People go through it, they don't have fun.

They get the hell scared out of 'em. It's not a fun house.

It's a tabernacle of terror. It's a fun house.

I wanted to ask you about this menu illustration.

I recognise most of the historical portraits you've drawn here, but what's this here?

It's the Fiji Mermaid.

Is that what that thing is? What's the Fiji Mermaid?

The Fiji Mermaid. It's... it's the Fiji Mermaid!

It's a bit of, uh... humbug Barnum pulled in the last century.

Barnum billed it as a real live mermaid but when people went in to see it...

..all they saw was a real dead monkey sewn onto the tail of a fish.

A monkey? A mummified monkey.

It supposedly looked so bad, he had to exhibit it as a "genuine fake".

But see? That's why Barnum was a genius.

You never know where the truth ends and the humbug begins.

He came right out and said this Fiji Mermaid thing is just a bunch of BS.

That just made people wanna go and see it even more. So I mean... who knows?

Maybe for box-office reasons Barnum hawked it as a hoax, when in reality...

The Fiji Mermaid was a reality.

Sheriff, we're gonna need a place to stay tonight.

There are lodgings right across the way, but, uh... what's all this about?

These tracks were found at several past crime scenes.

They've defied identification,...

..but one expert speculated that they might be simian in nature.

You're not telling me these tracks were made by the Fiji Mermaid?

Do you recall what Barnum said about suckers?

Tell me, have you done much circus work in your life?

And what makes you think I've ever spectated a circus?

Much less been enslaved by one.

Many citizens here were circus hands and I thought...

You thought that because I am a person of short stature,...

..that the only career I could procure for myself would be one in the so-called big top.

You took one quick look at me and decided that you could deduce my entire life.

Never would it have occurred to you that a person of my height...

..could have possibly obtained a degree...

..in hotel management.

I'm sorry. I meant no offence. Well, then, why should I take offence?

Just because it's human nature to make instantaneous judgments of others,...

..based solely upon their physical appearances?

I've done the same thing to you, for example.

I've taken in your all-American features,...

..your dour demeanour, your unimaginative necktie design,...

..and concluded that you work for the government.

An FBI agent.

But do you see the tragedy here?

I have mistakenly reduced you to a stereotype, a caricature,...

..instead of regarding you as a specific, unique individual.

But I am an FBI agent.

Register here, please.

Tell me, have you done much circus work in your life?

I was on the stage for most of my life.

I was a headliner.

Did it not bother you to have people staring at you?

Best work I ever had. All I had to do was stand there.

Occasionally I'd say,...

.."Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet my brother Leonard."

"Excuse him - he's a little shy."

Big laughs, I tell you. Big laughs.

Why did you give it up?

Mr Nutt, the kind-hearted manager here,...

..convinced me that to make a living by displaying my deformity lacked dignity.

So now I carry other people's luggage.

I believe these are your trailers.

If they are not, then I am wrong.

Oh.

That's most considerate. Thank you very much.

Goodnight.

Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.

No. No, that's not what I meant.

I didn't mean to imply we had bedbugs.

I meant to say don't let... Don't let the...

The Fiji Mermaids bite.

Yes, that's right. The Fiji Mermaids. That's right.

That's... That's exactly...

Mulder, what is this Fiji Mermaid business?

Every m*rder inquiry begins with a list of possible suspects.

You should try not to be so exclusive, Scully.

As long as you try not to let the atmosphere here distort your list all out of proportion.

I'm in a frenzy

Frenzy This love gushes from my heart Like water from a spout You build a flame from a tiny spark You can really knock me out - yeah!

Ease my mind with your real cool line Daddy, fill my soul with love divine When you say you're mine oh mine I'm in a frenzy

What the hell...?

Uh... ma'am?

The sheriff, he wants to see you.

There's been another m*rder.

There's some blood on the window we should send to the lab.

Why run a test on the victim's blood? No, not this window. This window.

It seems to be the point of entry and there's some blood on the outside of the window.

Why would there be blood before the att*ck?

Why didn't the attacker just come through the open door?

For a person to crawl in and out of these windows,...

..they'd have to be a contortionist.

Or just plain crazy. Or both.

While they're performing the autopsy, I wanna go down to the...

How many people do you know that can get out of a straitjacket in under three minutes?

Fortunately, none.

We caught your act at the funeral. That was some trick with the railroad spike.

Doctor Blockhead does not perform tricks.

Doctor Blockhead performs astounding acts of body manipulation and pain endurance.

You must be one of those rare individuals whose nerve endings don't register pain.

You just keep tellin' yourself that.

Have you ever performed this... act on anyone else?

Are you sick? I tell audiences if they're stupid enough to try this themselves,...

..they'll end up with a slight lobotomy. I am a professional.

Exactly how does one become a professional, Blockhead? May I?

In my homeland of Yemen I studied with yogis, fakirs and swamis,...

..learning the ancient arts of body manipulation.

But most men know nothing of these arts.

Did you know that through the Chinese practice of Tie Bu Shan,...

..you can train your testicles to draw up into your abdomen?

I'm doing that as we speak.

I saw him this morning by the river. He was eating a fish.

He knows between-show snacks'll ruin his appetite.

I could be mistaken. Maybe it was another bald, jigsaw-puzzle-tattooed naked guy.

Is this... man also a body manipulator?

No. In the classical sense, the Conundrum's a geek.

He eats live animals. He eats anything.

Live animals, dead animals, light bulbs, corkscrews, battery cables, cranberries.

Human flesh? Only the Conundrum can answer that.

But... he doesn't answer questions. He merely poses them.

When an audience partakes in the Conundrum's human piranha act,...

..they are left to ask themselves...

"Why?"

But where are my manners?

Thank you.

It's an old sleight of hand my uncle taught me.

He was only an amateur magician, but he was better than those two.

I'll go to the lab to test the blood on the window...

..against the blood on Blockhead's nail.

Everybody's uncle's an amateur magician.

Welcome to my museum.

May I put to rest any questions you may have conjured?

I was just reading about the fascinating life of Chang and Eng...

..and, uh... wondering if their death was just as fascinating.

Oh, very much so.

On a cold January eve in 1874,...

..Eng awoke to find his brother had passed away during the course of the night.

A few hours later, Eng himself departed from this world.

Now, these facts themselves may be less than fascinating, but imagine.

Imagine being Eng, and lying there,...

..knowing that essentially half your body was now dead.

That the rest must inevitably follow.

And being able to do about it - absolutely nothing.

At the autopsy it was officially concluded that Chang d*ed of a cerebral haemorrhage.

What was the official cause of Eng's death? Fright.

Do you have any information on blockhead or geek acts?

This is an historical collection on human curiosities.

Blockheads are skilled performers. Like magicians?

Like sword swallowers who really do swallow swords.

And geeks are neither skilled nor curiosities. They're merely unseemly.

Not even attaining the level of gaffs. Gaffs?

Observe closely the dissimilarity of the facial features.

Conjoined twins are always identical.

These gentlemen are phonies. Gaffs.

Sort of like the Fiji Mermaid?

You're investigating the Alligator Man's m*rder, yes?

I have something I believe you might find of some interest.

What does this have to do with the Glazebrook murders?

I've recently come into possession of an authentic PT Barnum exhibit.

I don't show this display to all my customers - only those with the intellectual curiosity to appreciate it.

Barnum billed it as a great unknown.

I must first ask of you two favours.

Tell no soul what you witness in here.

And the second favour? An additional donation of five dollars.

Does Agent Scully know that you're under her crawlspace?

I was merely repairing the plumbing on this unit.

I know what you're thinking, my friend, but you are grossly mistaken.

Not being of so-called average height does not mean I must get my thrills vicariously.

Not all women are attracted to overly tall, lanky men such as yourself.

You'd be surprised how many women find my size intriguingly alluring.

You'd be surprised how many men do, too.

Ach!

Oh, it's you. Has Mr Nutt finished with the plumbing?

The blood samples matched but were both O-positive. They went for further analysis.

I ran a background check on Doctor Blockhead.

His real name is Jeffrey Swaim and he wasn't born in Yemen.

He was born in Milwaukee. He does not hold a doctorate.

I ended up running a bit of a background check myself.

On who? On an orphan...

..discovered in the wild forests of Albania in 1943.

"Although adept at catching his own food,...

..he could not speak, save for a few savage grunts."

"Brought to this country, he was exhibited in a locked cage owing to his feral ferocity,...

..where he would terrify onlookers by devouring chunks of raw meat."

"For reasons I could not ascertain, he ran away from the circus...

..and spent a number of years roaming about, taking on a number of nondescript-jobs."

"Eventually he wound up in Gibsonton, where he began a career in law enforcement...

..and has spent the past four terms serving as sheriff."

You're talking about Sheriff Hamilton?

Before becoming Sheriff Hamilton,...

..James Hamilton was Jim-Jim the Dog-Faced Boy.

You know, Scully, hypertrichosis does not connote lycanthropy.

What are you implying? We're being discriminatory.

Just because a man was once overly hairy why suspect him of aberrant behaviour?

Like assuming guilt based on skin colour? Yeah.

May I ask what you're doing?

We're exhuming...

..your potato.

May I ask why?

It's been documented that many serial K*llers possess a fascination with police work,...

..some of them even holding positions on their local force.

So, surveillance of investigation team members is often utilised as a...

We found out you used to be a dog-faced boy.

Boy, look how skinny I was back then.

So, that is you? Oh, sure.

I spent the first half of my life as Jim-Jim.

One day I noticed a bald spot on my head...

..and realised I was losing my hair and my career as well!

Eventually all the hair went - on top of my head anyways.

The rest of my body's still pretty hairy, which is why I never go to the beach.

That doesn't quite explain the potato.

I got, uh... some warts on my hand.

That doesn't quite explain the potato.

To get rid of warts, you rub a sliced potato on your hand and bury it under a full moon.

The investigation isn't going too well, is it?

So tell me, Commodore.

Why are the weirdos the only ones that pay their rent cheques in advance?

I warn you, you tattooed cretin!

I have a licensed firearm and I am more than eager for an opportunity to use it.

I found him.

He's dead. He's dead.

Lanny says all the doors and windows were locked from the inside.

Scully, come here.

He was like a brother to me.

I don't know if a contortionist could get through that doggy door, but look at this.

Lanny! Lanny!

Take it easy. You're gonna hurt yourself.

So what? So you might hurt me in the process.

He gets this way sometimes. I'll have to toss him in the drunk t*nk.

We'll take Jeffrey Swaim into custody.

Come on, Lanny. Let's go.

You know, Mulder, for a while...

..I was beginning to suspect this case involved something a bit more...

Freakish?

You shouldn't complain about banality...

..when your main suspect is the Human Blockhead.

It's open!

Mr Swaim? Federal agents. We're here to...

It's a variation of an American Indian sun dance ritual.

I suspend myself by these hooks,...

..and the pain becomes so unbearable, I leave my body.

If people knew the true price of spirituality, there'd be more atheists.

We're taking you into custody to question you about some murders.

I don't answer till I talk to my lawyer.

Who's your lawyer? I represent myself.

If you're uncooperative, I'll have to handcuff you.

What gives you fascists the right to do that?

Did I not say we're federal agents? Did I not say I'm an escape artist?

Mulder, are you okay?

It's more comfortable than a futon.

Hey! Look what I caught.

Ouch!

What the hell...?

No!

Nooo!

Nooo!

This has all the makings of those mistaken- identity miscarriage-of-justice things...

..that prove so popular on 60 Minutes.

Is this yours? The Fifth Amendment says...

What is that? It's Lanny in the drunk t*nk.

He'll be all right once he sleeps it off.

No, I don't think he's gonna sleep this one off.

There's been another att*ck.

How could anyone have gotten in there?

No one got in. But someone got out.

What are you talking about? I'm not sure myself.

But we'll know more when we find Leonard.

Leonard? Lanny's brother.

Oh, God, they extracted the twin.

No. The twin extracted itself.

But it's an appendage. Yeah. Mulder...

This wound is identical to the other victim's - with one exception.

He's not bleeding.

If you're trying to tell me his twin can crawl out of his body, you're as drunk as he is.

You said it yourself, Sheriff: it's what's inside that counts.

I suspect that Lanny has an internal anomaly that allows his conjoining twin to disjoin.

But how? How... How?

How could I turn him in without turning myself in?

Lanny, why does he att*ck other people?

I don't think he knows he's harming anyone.

He is merely seeking...

..another brother.

Are you in pain, Lanny?

It hurts.

It hurts not to be wanted.

I don't know why he hates me so.

I've taken care of him for all of our lives.

Maybe that is the reason why.

How long can he survive outside of your body?

Long enough...

..to understand that you cannot change the way you were born.

Don't worry.

He'll come back.

He always does.

I'm still his only brother.

Sheriff, we're gonna need the paramedics.

Scully, you're the medical expert and you say the twin can disengage.

But how mobile could such a thing be?

Too mobile.

So your twin can, uh...

And then...

What an act!

I'll cover the back.

Freeze!

The fun house.

I thought I heard a sh*t fired.

I think we'd better go outside and catch this thing coming out.

It's the manager's dog.

The trailer park.

Are you all right? Have you seen a... uh...

Uh...

Check out the area behind that trailer and let me know what you find.

All right.

You're sure it was the twin you saw here?

Maybe it was the Fiji Mermaid...

..and he jumped back in the river and swam back to Fiji.

Now you know how I feel.

You're takin' off? Are you kidding? With that on the loose?

They've been searching for it all day. It can't have survived for this long.

It'll probably try to crawl back up into its brother.

No, his brother Lanny d*ed last night.

I performed the autopsy on him this morning.

So I guess it's true you can never go home again!

His body wounds were nonfatal.

He d*ed as a result of advanced cirrhosis of the liver.

Oh, there's a moral to this story! "Lay off the booze."

Well, his body possesses some anatomical discrepancies.

Offshoots of the oesophagus and trachea that almost seem umbilical in nature. I...

I've never seen anything like it. And you never will again.

21 st-century genetic engineering...

..will eradicate Siamese twins and alligator people.

You'll even be hard-pressed to find a slight overbite or a not-so-high cheekbone.

You see, I've seen the future and the future looks... just like him.

Imagine! Living your whole life looking like that.

That's why it's left to self-made freaks like me and the Conundrum to remind people.

Remind people of what?

Nature abhors normality. It can't go very long without creating a mutant.

Do you know why? No. Why?

I don't either. It's a mystery.

Maybe some mysteries are never meant to be solved.

What's the matter with your friend? I don't know what his problem is.

Maybe it's the Florida heat. Hope it's nothing serious.

Probably somethin' I ate.

I made this!