Case 03, File 23: Wetwired

AKA: I Think I'm Paranoid

Usually when examining The X-Files, I (along with with most people) divide the series into two kinds of episodes: Monster of the Week and Mythology. And while that's a handy way of cataloging the series, its not actually that clear cut. Several times an episode has appeared to be a Monster of the Week and turned out to Mythology episode (its sort of happened in reverse a couple times but not as notably). Its a hard shift to pull off, as the attempts to conceal the Conspiracy's hand in things tends to leave the episode a little confused and awkward. But there are ways to make the transition work.


Our episode kicks off with a man, Joseph Patnik, burying a body out in the woods, which is really how you want to be spending your weekends. But when he gets home, the guy he buried is there, so he kills him there too. And when the cops show up, they look like him too. But after a second it turns out the cops just look like cops...oh and the guy he murdered in the house was actually his wife. Whoops.

Mulder probably wouldn't have gotten involved, except he gets a message from a mysterious informant (not X) that he should look into it. When he and Scully check in on Patnik, they find him sedated up to his eyeballs by his doctor, who suspects Amphetamines. They check out Patnik's house, only to find that he has months upon months of recorded VHS tapes of news broadcasts, which is...very weird.  Seriously, so weird. They also catch a brief glimpse of a cable guy working on the nearby telephone pole.

So Mulder and Scully decide the only thing to do is to watch the tapes, and Scully discovers that each of the nights of the murder, the news recorded a broadcast about a genocidal dictator in Yugoslavia. They argue briefly about whether TV can cause people to become killers and retire to their respective rooms. Scully keeps watching the tapes but eventually goes outside and thinks she sees Mulder meeting with the Cigarette Smoking Man! Gasp!

"Hm, I didn't know people could see static in real life, I should have that checked out."

Anyhoo, the next morning a lady shoots her husband lying in the hammock with a blonde woman. Only the blonde woman was a dog. And the guy wasn't her husband. Whoops again. Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate and after some digging, find a bunch of tapes of a product hawking tv show (seriously, who records that?). Mulder catches sight of the same cable guy and tries to chase him down. He fails but does discover an odd device installed in the cable and decides to have it analyzed.

Of course, being Mulder, he takes it to the Lone Gunmen and they tell him that the device is emitting some kind of signal. Helpful. He checks in with Scully who is descending into paranoia and insanity and when he shows up at her hotel, she shoots at him. Whoops. Skinner orders a manhunt and Mulder begins looking for her on his own. He fails but goes back to the Lone Gunmen who tell him that the device is transmitting subliminal messages but they find he's immune due to being colorblind. He's interrupted to go have to go identify Scully's body at the morgue.

Turns out it's not actually her of course, but the morgue attendant tells him that Scully's mom hasn't been answering her phone so he goes to see her and it turns out Scully is there, in the grips of paranoia and delusion. Scully's mom talks her down though. Mulder does a little detective work while she's in the hospital and tracks the cable guy and one of the doctors who is responsible to a house...where they are immediately executed by X. Whoops. X tells Mulder he fucked up and the episode ends with X meeting with the Cigarette Smoking Man, telling him everything went fine.

Agent Fox Mulder: Never misses an opportunity to do something absurd.

Way back in Season 2, I compared this episode to Blood and now I feel that comparison is even more apt. They're both very good episode about government mind control, with good acting and direction, let down a little bit by some wonky structure and pacing. If I had to pick a way of defining them, I'd say Blood has a little more focus while Wetwired has more emotional engagement. We'll pick apart the more specific details as we go.

Well here's a fairly important specific detail: Scully is actually in this one! Blood hit in that very awkward moment in The X-Files history when Gillian Anderson was mostly unavailable and therefore Scully is barely in it, and god do we miss her. Every time I do a rewatch, I am just blown away by how much a gift Gillian Anderson is to the series (and the world in general), and this episode is a perfect example. She sells her descent into paranoia hard, and while the final confrontation lacks the intensity of the Russian Roulette scene from Pusher, it's certainly an excellent scene, especially from her and Shelia Larken.

But it's more than just the acting ability that Gillian brings to the table, its the second half of our iconic duo. The characters not only need each other to balance out their respective flaws, but the actors also need each other to bounce off of. That, plus the audience's built in affection for their relationship, is what makes such a direct threat to it so effective. We know, instinctively, that the show probably won't kill off Mulder or Scully, but threatening their friendship is enough to make that threat feel real.

"I think I'm paranoid and complicated. I think I'm paranoid, manipulated."

Of course it also helps that our victim this time around is Scully. I'm trying not to compare it too much to Blood, but it's hard to deny that while Blood did a good job of getting us to empathize with Edward Funsch, our caring about him will always pale in comparison to our love for Agent Scully. Of course the flipside there is that our victims this time around are pretty flat; Neither of them get much in the way of characterization outside of their actual attack scene (although Patnik does get a little, with the revelation that his parents were Holocaust survivors) but hey, the secondary characters don't all need to be winners.

Its also a very well made episode across the board. The static effect on a lot of the hallucinations seems like it shouldn't work, but it works, and even manages to look genuinely surreal and menacing. Director Rob Bowman also does a lot of good work with light and darkness to help sell Scully's growing paranoia, lighting a lot of scenes with the glow of the TV, which gives the entire episode a solid visual style. It's not particularly ground breaking, but it works for the story and theme.

If the episode has a major flaw its that its structured kind of oddly. The plot has more or less resolved after Scully's confrontation with Mulder, but there's still 5 minutes of rapid investigation so Mulder can confront X and it feels like it just goes way too fast. I dunno if they wrote too much and tried to force it all into the last few minutes or if they wrote the original ending and realized they had too much time, but either way, it just feels like a last minute addition that makes the episode's pacing awkward. Of course given that they have a few other time wasting exercises (the manhunt and pretending Scully is dead) makes me think the latter.

Still, that's far, far, far from a dealbreaker, and Wetwired is still an engaging, enjoyable episode, in addition to being an excuse for alliteration. There's not a lot of episodes that feel as similar to an earlier episode as this one does to Blood, but redoing an episode they had to do without Scully now that they have her isn't the worst idea and the fact that the episode is really good certainly helps.

Case Notes:

• Really solid cold open, with the body getting buried and ranting to himself. Very creepy, very mysterious.
• That said, the Real Face of the guy he killed is just a wee bit too close to the face of the guy he thinks he's killing, so the first time I saw this, I didn't pick up on that.
• The cop calls the killer a "Damn Amp Head" but I have never heard the term Amp Head in my life. Google just keeps throwing Amplifiers when I look it up. I assume it means PCP?
• "This area has always been known for its criminal element." "Especially when Congress is in session." Mulder's sass in this episode is on point.
• The guy who they got to play the warlord Patnik is scared of is good casting.
• The kids are watching Die Hard in the living room. Given that the episode is about violence in media, it's a bit on the nose, but I do like Die Hard.
• Honestly, recording and chronologically ordering cable news shows is pretty weird.
• I like that Mulder and Scully actually have a discussion about whether or not violence media could turn someone violent. As a Communications nerd, I like that the episode doesn't just take it as given.
• The sound design, music and direction in this episode do a good job of communicating Scully's growing paranoia. I especially like the shot of her staring into the camera with her face lit by the TV. Good stuff.
• It may be mostly to keep the episode at full length, but I like that Scully questions her perceptions when she thinks Mulder is meeting with the Cigarette Smoking Man. She's smart enough to not just fly off the handle.
• The static effect in this episode works better than it has any right to. It honestly reminds me a bit of VIdeodrome, in a good way.
• The shot of the dead guy in the hammock is pretty grim but also very effective without being too gory.
• I love how Mulder just sits down on the exer-cycle in the second house.
• The shot of Scully seeing Mulder climbing the electric pole is a laugh track away from being a sitcom gag.
• I also like that Mulder's behavior isn't at all different to incite Scully's paranoia. Honestly, being paranoid around Mulder would be pretty standard.
• Lone Gunmen scenes are always good with me and this one is pretty great.
• The manhunt bit with Scully goes basically nowhere, and is probably the weakest ideas in the episode. The red herring with her being dead is clearly just killing time, since the only thing it gives Mulder is that Scully's mom isn't answering her phone (which he could get by calling her).
• I like how Mulder holds up his tie to indicate he's colorblind.
• Mulder just flat out kicks the dude's car. Love it.
• Mulder is already making jokes in Scully's hospital room. Love them both so much.
• The hotel manager is unusually helpful for someone who got shot at. The bit with Mulder asking if he wanted him to go first is cute though.
• So much of this series is predicated on the idea that 6 foot tall lanky Mulder can hide from people, and I just never buy it. You can see him from space.
• David Duchovny also kills it it in his confrontation with X. I especially like it knowing how uh...X will fair in the next couple episodes.
• The final scene with X and the Cigarette Smoking Man is a nice parallel with Mulder, Scully and Skinner, but it's mostly just info we already have.
• As always, these reviews are supported by my Patreon. Please consider donating if you like what I do and want it to continue.

Future Celebrity Watch:

Doctor Stroman is played by Colin Cunningham, who would go on to have a major role in the series Falling Skies, which I've never watched but have heard is good. He was also a recurring character on one of those Stargate shows and even had very very brief appearances on some previous X-Files episodes.