04x20 - Small Potatoes

[bunniefuu]

We're almost there.

How you doin', hon?

Breathe deeply. Just like that. There ya go. You're doin' great.

Yeah, real great.

Ma'am? Ma'am, I'll need your full name and Social Security number.

Amanda Nelligan. 545020809.

And your insurance carrier? Atlantic Mutual.

Is there anyone you need us to contact? The father of the baby?

I'm not sure how to reach him. Give me his name. I can try.

He's not from around here.

Is he from out of state? Another planet.

All right, we're here now. Hold on.

One more little push, Amanda.

There you go. You're gonna set a speed record here.

Great.

There's a cute face.

Bulb syringe.

This is like the Indy 500 here. Here comes the shoulder...

Good. OK, Amanda.

That'll do it!

Oh... Oh, God.

What? What is it? It's OK. She's just fine.

Perfectly healthy.

No problem. Everything's gonna be A-OK.

You've got a healthy baby girl.

A little girl!

Good Lord. Not another one!

The photo's a little over the top, but, um, what do you think, Scully?

Not seriously. Vestigial tails don't interest you?

Caudal appendages. Fetuses have them.

The coccyx enlarges to contain the spinal fluid, then shrinks as the child develops.

Occasionally, it doesn't. It's extremely rare but it has been known to happen.

Five times in the last three months?

In a town with a population of less than 15,000 people?

I'd say that's more than a statistical anomaly.

So would I. No, Mulder, I think you're right.

I think that something about this warrants investigation.

Only not by us. I'd say that it's a job for the local health department.

I called around. They're already investigating.

So what else about this interests you?

Could it be... visitors from space?

The doctor said that...

..my baby's gonna be fine.

She's really healthy.

And when she's a few months old, it's just a matter of "snip".

That's good to hear. Yeah.

Did you experience any unusual complications during your pregnancy?

Did you undergo any kind of fertility treatment?

No. I wasn't trying to get pregnant.

I guess you could just sort of say I'm a single mom now.

When you were admitted, you said that the baby's father was from another planet.

What did you mean by that exactly? You know, that... he's not from this planet.

Were you abducted? Huh?

No. No. He dropped by my apartment one day,...

..and one thing sort of led to another.

But the baby's father is an alien.

No! No, I didn't say he was an alien. I said he was from another planet.

His name is Luke Skywalker. He's what's known as a Jedi Knight.

Did he have a light sabre? No, he didn't bring it.

He did sing his song for me, though.

How many times have you seen Star Wars?

Three hundred and sixty-eight.

I should break 400 by Memorial Day.

OK.

Thank you.

Wait a minute, wait!

You know these four other babies that were born around here with tails?

Uh-huh. There couldn't be any chance...

..Luke's the father, is there?

OK.

All right. I got it. Thank you.

Take your best sh*t, but I think there's more going on here than Luke Skywalker.

I think you're right, Mulder.

Are you coming?

Here are the PCRs we ran for the five children. We put calls in to the parents.

We'll blood-test all the husbands this afternoon.

Good. They'll be none too happy.

I have to confess, this answer seems so strangely obvious,...

..I probably wouldn't have even checked for it.

What answer?

You see here, these identical band-trait matches,...

..all showing a small loss of a part of chromosome number eight?

Each of these five children, born to five different women, all share the same father.

I should've thought of it sooner. This kind of birth defect is often passed on in a family.

Meaning the father had a tail as well?

Though he most likely had it surgically removed along the way.

How would this happen?

Birds and bees and monkey babies.

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated MDs do it.

All five of these women shared the same ob-gyn, didn't they?

Yeah. He's the only one in town.

Four of the five women, the married women, not including Amanda Nelligan,...

..are on record as receiving insemination therapy as a means of conception.

The doctor might have something to do with it?

So much for not putting all your eggs in one basket.

We should find the best lawyer. I plan to sue. That's all I'm saying, Fred.

Babboo, let me do the talking. I'll handle this.

Just tell him we're gonna sue.

Oh, you too, huh?

What the hell did you do? What did you do?

I didn't do anything. We're gonna figure this out. Look, everybody, just relax.

Don't you tell me to relax! What the hell happened to my sperm?

Mine too! Whose did you use?

It's bad enough having a boy with a tail. Then you find out it's not even yours!

For God's sake, Alton, how many of us are there?

I'm Special Agent Mulder with the FBI. This is Agent Scully.

Great! Arrest this son of a bitch. Settle down. Nobody's gonna be arrested.

We're here to find out what's goin' on. Alton didn't use my sperm.

I most certainly did.

Each of you women was inseminated with your husband's own sperm.

Why was it necessary to inseminate in these cases?

It was a sperm-motility issue. The intrauterine process I used...

..has about a 40 per cent chance of success.

I was surprised. It seemed to work all four times.

The only thing I can think of is... What?

Maybe it never worked at all. What are you saying, Alton?

I wanna know what he means by that.

I haven't been with a man since 1989. I mean, not counting you, honey.

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm just saying,...

..my latest patient who gave birth to a baby with a tail?

She didn't undergo insemination.

So you are blaming the wrong baby doctor.

Hey.

Hey.

Excuse me.

I'm an agent with the FBI. I'd like to ask you a few questions.

Uh...

Yeah, OK.

Scully, check it out.

Oh, my God.

That's him? He's the one?

Five out of five.

They spelled my name wrong. It's Van Blundht, with a silent h.

B-l-u-n-d-h-t. We'll get right on that.

Lots of people spell it wrong. It's, like, Dutch or somethin'.

Can I go now? No.

There's a few things we have to clear up.

Yeah. Like how'd you do it?

What do you mean?

You're the father of five children, Mr Van Blundht. Is that not news to you?

Do you have any insight into how five women came to be inseminated with your sperm?

You make it sound so romantic.

You're saying there was romance involved?

Why is that so hard to believe?

Just cos I was born with a tail, no woman would want me?

Maybe I got personality. You ever think of that?

You had sex with these women?

How is it that none of them have any recollection whatsoever of that happening?

Look, I'm not saying anything one way or another.

I'm just sayin', hypothetically,...

..if some women wanted to have kids and their husbands weren't capable,...

..and everybody was happy, and nobody got hurt, hypothetically, where's the crime?

If you're waitin' for my usual theory as to what's goin' on, I don't have one.

I do. On behalf of all the women in the world,...

..I seriously doubt this has anything to do with consensual sex.

I think it involved some form of Rohypnol-r*pe.

The tranquillizer? I didn't think of that. The "date r*pe" drug.

High doses of it cause a loosening of inhibitions, memory loss.

If Van Blundht was able to slip the drug to these women,...

..especially in conjunction with alcohol...

But when and where would he have had the opportunity?

He identified these women through his janitorial job.

He could've followed them anywhere, to a bar.

Those women don't look like the type to do a lot of solo drinking.

I think it's enough to keep him in custody while we check it out.

Uh, you spelled my name wrong.

It's B-I-u-n-d-h-t. Silent h.

Address?

I strongly suggest you stop eyeballin' me and tell me your address.

17 Prospect Parkway.

Martinsburg, 25401.

All right, Mr Van Blundht. Give me your phone number.

What the hell...?

The h is silent.

I could've sworn Curtis clocked out hours ago. He said good night to me.

This morning I find him underneath the desk.

Deputy, are you sure you don't remember what happened last night?

The guy cold-cocked me. Except he wasn't the guy.

He was me.

My head hurts.

I found Van Blundht's clothes in a locker.

He must've worn the deputy's spare uniform.

After hitting him over the head.

I have a theory. Do you wanna hear it?

Van Blundht physically transformed into his captor, then walked out the door?

Should we be pickin' out china patterns or what?

What about the simple answer? With that blow to the head,...

..the deputy might as well have identified McGruff the Crime Dog.

What about what the sheriff saw? Two men, same build, same colouring.

Add the uniform, it explains how someone can mistake one man for another at 3 a.m.

My theory explains how four women could mistake Van Blundht for their husbands,...

..and how Amanda Nelligan could think it was Luke Skywalker.

We've both seen something like this before.

But what are you saying? That Van Blundht is an alien?

Not unless they have trailer parks in space. No, this is something different.

If you could be somebody else for a day, who would it be?

Hopefully myself.

So boring. Wouldn't you even be tempted to try somebody else's existence for a day?

Live your life as somebody else?

Looking like someone else and being someone else are different things.

Everybody else would treat you like you were somebody else.

Maybe it's other people's reactions to us that make us who we are.

All right, then. Eleanor Roosevelt.

You can't be a dead person. Why the hell not?

Because.

What are you doin' sneakin' around my porch?

We're with the FBI. Is this the home of Edward Van Blundht?

That's me. We're looking for your son, Eddie Junior.

Eddie?

What did that moron do now?

Five women? Oh, Lord!

Anything else?

Yes. He att*cked a sheriff's deputy during his escape from custody.

Hurt bad? Fortunately not.

Well, thank heavens for that at least.

Sir, do you have any idea where your son might be?

I wish I did. I'm sorry. I haven't seen him for the last two days.

Is this you?

One and the same. Hey, you wanna see?

No!

No.

No, thank you.

My son had his removed when he was, uh... just a kid.

Kept buggin' me and buggin' me... until...

..until I finally let him do it.

There you go. I told him it was a mistake.

I said "Son, you ain't much to look at, you ain't no athlete...

..and you sure the hell ain't no Einstein, but at least you got that tail."

"Otherwise, you're just small potatoes." But he didn't listen.

Does your son have any other unique medical conditions?

I mean, aside from the tail?

Mr Mulder, that boy was born sickly.

We had this condition in the South called pellagra.

Excuse me, sir, how did you know my name was Mulder?

She told me it was. No, actually, I didn't.

It's him!

Pretty spry for an old guy, huh?

Eddie Junior, not Senior?

Whichever one he is, wouldn't you say he's a man with a secret?

Honey, what are you doing home so early?

Something's wrong with Daddy.

Fred?

Honey?

Fred, is everything OK?

Everything's fine.

What happened to the clothes you were wearing this morning?

I'll explain later. Just give me a little privacy, OK,...

Uhu... Babboo?

OK.

Sugar Patootie.

I'll check upstairs.

I'm all right. What?

Oh!

It's quicklime.

Move back over there.

Not so spry.

Do you think the fall k*lled him?

Babboo, I'm home.

Oh, crap! I'm home early.

What?

You were just here.

You went into the bathroom. What?

What do you mean, I went into the bathroom?

Shh, come here.

Someone is in the bathroom.

It's all clear.

So, what k*lled Eddie the Monkey Man?

It's difficult to say. The quicklime b*rned the tissue even as it preserved it.

So, what k*lled him is one of two things I haven't figured out yet.

What's the other thing? That would be this.

Striated muscle tissue.

What's unusual about that? In and of itself, nothing.

Where I found it, however... Where did you find it?

Everywhere. His entire body.

This man has a thin stratum of voluntary muscle tissue...

..underpinning the entire dermal layer of his skin.

That's not normal. This man's body is quite a scientific specimen.

And thankfully, it's preserved and intact.

In other words, there are 654 muscles in the human body,...

..and this man, essentially, has 655.

Um...

Could that somehow be related to his having a tail?

Possibly. It could be a linked gene birth defect.

What would be the purpose of this muscle?

You got me, Mulder. You know, maybe none.

It appears atrophied. Although it may look that way as a result of the mummification.

Could this be a "like father, like son" kind of a thing?

What do you mean? Could Eddie Junior have...

..the same anomalous muscular structure as his dad here?

Maybe. What are you suggesting?

If this musculature underlies the entire skin,...

..maybe it could be utilized to remould the skin's shape and texture.

Which might explain why we're looking for a man who can appear to be his own father.

Isn't it much more likely that this man simply has an identical twin?

Check that out. Where are you going?

Van Blundht's MO confuses me.

Four married women who wanted to get pregnant...

And one single woman who didn't.

Come in.

Sorry, Ms Nelligan. I'm sorry to bother you.

No, it's no bother.

I just have a few additional questions I wanted to ask you.

OK. Here we go, sweetie.

Bye-bye.

We'll just come back later.

I thought they were lettin' me stay here so long because I had really great insurance.

Turns out they're just keepin' me here because they think I'm sort of crazy.

They wanna make sure I'm safe to be around my baby.

Free cable.

I wanna ask you, do you recognize this man?

Oh, yes.

Eew!

That's Eddie Van Blundht.

What can you tell me about him?

We went out all through high school.

OK, brother. What?

Nothing. He's just... he's sort of a loser.

One of those guys you look back on and you go...

.."Oh, my God, what was I thinkin'? What was I thinkin'?"

Well, what specifically made him a loser?

I don't know. Everything.

He had, like, one million annoying personal habits.

You know, just no sense of romance,...

..no ambition, you know, no direction.

I hear he's, like, a janitor or somethin' now.

He had this weird family. His dad was in a circus or somethin'.

Well... he must have had some good qualities.

Well, yeah, sure. Everybody's got a few.

We had some good times.

He loved Star Wars so we used to go and see it every weekend.

That was nice.

He was no Luke, that's for sure.

Why do you wanna know about Eddie?

That's official FBI business.

Wow.

Hey, uh...

I wanted to congratulate you on this blessed event.

Thank you!

"May the force be with you."

Hello there.

I'm here to see Amanda Nelligan. Just down the hall there.

Come in.

No, seriously, though, why do you wanna know about Eddie?

What about Eddie? Why were you asking me those questions?

Mulder. This is Fred Niemann.

Is it OK for us to get into our bathroom now?

Excuse me, sir?

I was hoping we could get into our bathroom this evening.

You said the police were gonna dust it for fingerprints, but that was four hours ago.

We wanna help you catch this guy, but I'm having a real hard time here.

How exactly do you wind up chasing the suspect into my bathroom?

Don't forget the suit. What do you need with my charcoal suit?

I'm sorry, Mr Niemann. I'm gonna have to call you back.

I was just here. Where did I go?

Huh?

There was a man. He looked exactly like me. Did you see where he went?

Down the hall.

Men's locker room. Thank you.

Hey. Hey.

Van Blundht. Who?

Don't think about it. Get your hands up. Turn around.

Keep 'em up there.

Put your hands down now.

If it's not you, I apologize in advance.

What are you doing?

Pull your pants up.

What? What did I do now?

You're the only ones here? Yeah.

I apologize. Only one of you is the man I'm looking for. I hope.

I gotta wait for some blood tests and then I'll release the other one.

So just sit tight and relax. Keep your clothes on, huh?

Scully. Hey, it's me.

Get down to the hospital right away.

I'm on my way. Good.

You're a damn good-looking man.

You drew a g*n on me. You handcuffed me!

With my own handcuffs.

I'm sorry.

I don't understand. Do we look like criminals?

What was on your mind? I said I was sorry.

Am I done here? Yeah. We got his description.

Come on, guys. What the hell happened?

Van Blundht surprised me. He cold-cocked me and then he got away.

Got a lead on him?

No, but the authorities are on the warpath...

..for goin' after one of their own. They'll catch him eventually.

So, what? That's it for us?

I know I dragged you out here, but I'm beginning to think this is just a waste of time.

Now you think there's no X-File here?

No. No. I think the only thing that's here is small potatoes.

Hello?

Hello!

Get me outta here!

Hello! Hello!

I'm down here!

Help! Help!

Which one of you wrote this?

I did, sir.

You spelled Federal Bureau of Investigation wrong.

It was a typo.

Twice.

Agent Scully, did you establish a cause of death?

Yes, sir. Edward Van Blundht Senior d*ed of natural causes.

Specifically heart disease and advanced age.

We think the son hid the father...

..so he could continue to cash in on the old man's Social Security cheques.

Most likely. So, the son wasn't a m*rder*r.

No, not at all. But he was a r*pist.

I entered him into the sex offenders' database.

The West Virginia State Police have a photo and will coordinate with local authorities.

There should be an arrest soon.

That about wraps it up.

So, Scully, what are you doin' tonight? Any big plans?

As it's Friday, I was thinking I could get some work in...

..on that monograph I'm writing for the penology review.

Diminished acetylcholine production in recidivist offenders.

Uh-huh.

Actually, I might bag that, though. Really?

Yeah. The anomalous musculature in the corpse we found really has me intrigued.

In fact, I think I'll go to Quantico and have some tissue samples run.

I'll see you Monday.

Monday morning.

"Fox"?

Brother!

Good night!

This is where my tax dollars go?

Where do I live?

Where the hell do I sleep?

Mulder? Langly. You gotta see this.

An associate of ours has figured out a way to digitize the Zabruder footage...

..so he can get a bird’s-eye view of Dealey Plaza at the moment of the assassination.

You won't believe where the 3rd sh*t came from.

Tell him about the cheese steaks.

We're goin’ out for cheese steaks. Are you down with that?

Erase this once you hear it.

Geeks for friends.

Marty, it's Chantal. It's been so long since we've spoken.

And I’ve been so lonely not hearing your sexy voice.

Just for you, we've lowered our rates to 40 cents a minute,...

..two ninety-nine for the first minute, all long-distance rates apply.

Do give me a call, lover man. I'll be waiting.

FBI.

F... B... I.

FBI.

You lookin' at me?

There ain't nobody else here. You must be lookin' at me.

You wanna piece of this?

You're a damn good-lookin' man.

Mulder, what's up? Scully...

Is this a bad time?

No. No, I'm...

Come on in.

Who's that for?

Uh... us.

OK, have a seat.

So, uh, what are you workin' on?

More autopsy data.

Everyone at the lab found Mr Van Blundht pretty fascinating.

We discovered an additional anomaly relating to the hair follicles in his scalp.

I can't even begin to guess at the nature of it until we can run it...

..through the transmission electron microscope.

Sounds very interesting.

Yes, it is.

So, seriously, Mulder. What's going on?

You OK? Mmm.

I was just kinda knockin' around,...

..and was just thinkin'...

It's good. We never really, uh,...

..talk much, do we?

What do you mean? Like... really talk?

No, no, we don't, Mulder.

Well, what's stopping us?

So there we are, at two o'clock in the morning, me in my taffeta dress...

..and Marcus in whatever the hell it was he was wearing... Thank you very much.

It had a kelly-green cummerbund on it.

Anyway, so I know that Marcus is thinking that it's now or never.

And I'm thinking... What are you thinking?

I'm thinking, what is that siren I hear getting louder?

No way! Who called the cops? It was the fire department.

My friend Sylvia and her idiot prom date... Burwood?

..had built this campfire that went out of control.

And so we all had to ride back on the, uh...

What do you call it? The, uh, the pumper truck.

Yeah. Marcus was the 12th-grade love of my life.

I can't believe I'm telling you this.

I don't believe you haven't told me before.

Now I'm seeing a whole new side of you, Mulder.

Is that a good thing?

I like it.

Do you ever wish things were different? What do you mean?

The person you wanted to be when you grew up, when you were in high school?

How far off from that did you end up? Careerwise? Miles off target.

Not just that.

Do you ever wish... that you could go back and do it all differently?

Do you?

Thanks for comin'.

What's with the hat?

My therapist makes me wear it. She says it's meant to bolster my self-esteem.

Does it?

Not really. The other inmates b*at me up and take it from me,...

..which would be OK except every week she brings me a new hat.

Plus they keep me on some kind of muscle relaxant...

..so I can't make faces the way I used to.

Did you tell them to do that? ls, uh... is Agent Scully here?

What did you wanna talk to me about, Eddie?

I just think it's funny.

I was born a loser, but you're one by choice.

On what do you base that astute assessment?

Experience.

You should live a little. Treat yourself.

God knows I would, if I were you.

Have a good day, sir.

I don't imagine you need to be told this, Mulder, but you're not a loser.

Yeah, but I'm no Eddie Van Blundht, either, am I?

I made this.