The X-Files Season 4, Episode 4: Unruhe

Well, here's another brilliant and disturbing episode that only minimally involves paranormal activity. Though that minimal paranormal activity does provide the clues they need to break open the case. And to rescue Scully, because she gets abducted. AGAIN. She's a decent investigator and a good scientist, but holy shit she is not genre savvy. Yes, let's pursue a mentally unbalanced man already suspected of stalking his victims and using a powerful dental anaesthetic to subdue them. JUST SAYING.

Also, sharp things near eyes. STOP.

I don't think 'Unruhe' is as good as 'Irresistible', but I liked it more than 'Grotesque', and those are the two episodes I'd consider most similar to it. It was a decent psychological thriller, but I wish the tension at the end could have been created without developing yet another abduction plot for Scully.

Or at least, if she was going to be abducted, allow her to find a way to fight back instead of having to stall by talking to Schnauz for long enough that Mulder can show up and rescue her. I mean, why is this still happening? I guess it's only fair since Mulder was the one threatened in the previous episode, 'Teliko', and Scully saved him, but still, I'm pretty sure Scully is the one in danger far more than half the time. It's been more than a little unbalanced over the course of the series so far.

The main plot of 'Unruhe' is based around a man who believes he needs to rescue women from something he calls 'howlers', and of course, all I can think of is letters in red envelopes that shout at you and then explode. I may have been reading too much Harry Potter. But his paranoid delusions are so strong that they appear in photographs taken while he is somehow psychically influencing the camera or film. I don't think we're ever really given an explanation of how he's able to do this, just that he can.

Of course, like a lot of people who are deluded to believe they are helping people, he's doing quite the opposite and performing horrific lobotomies on the women in order to purge their minds of 'howlers'. He's also stalking them and knocking them out with drugs before he even gets to the lobotomy part, so maybe 'misguided' wouldn't be the best description of Schnauz, whose name is apparently a cross between Schnauzer and Schnozz.

So I think this episode works both because of the very human nature of the case, but also because of how horrific the idea of both twilight sleep and home lobotomies are, especially when performed involuntarily. I guess any involuntary pseudo-medical procedure is bound to be rather disturbing, isn't it?

I often wonder how the writers dream up villains like Schnauz - I wondered this same thing about the Dollhouse episode, 'Belle Chose', which involved a man paralysing and posing his victims alive. That was even more nightmare fuelish than this, but I feel like to even come up with something like that, a person would have to be a sociopath. It's extreme; it's awful; it goes well beyond the 'normal' horrible things people do to each other.

Maybe it's like Mulder in 'Grotesque' and 'Pusher' - they're able to get inside the minds of sociopaths without becoming them. Which is what Scully gets to in the end. She was able to understand Schnauz well enough to hold him at bay until she could be rescued, and while I don't expect to see Scully adopting any of his beliefs or behaviour any time soon, it's certainly an interesting point, and I think the main point that makes this episode as good as it is.

Without it, they just have another delusional person who's lobotomising women for no reason, and no forthcoming explanation as to why he thought he was doing it.

Oh, and one other thing - this episode also contains the most spectacularly absurd photo enhancement scene in the history of television. Yes, you can totally take a blurry photo showing minimal detail and somehow extract details from it that weren't captured initially. Maybe they're doing psychic photo enhancement? It would make sense for a psychically generated picture, right? That's all I've got on it.

But since it helps them solve the case, I guess I kind of have to let it slide.