Folie a Deux (The X-Files)

"Folie a Deux"
The X-Files episode
A living corpse.
Episode no.	Season 5 Episode 19
Directed by	Kim Manners
Written by	Vince Gilligan
Production code	5X19
Original air date	May 10, 1998
Guest stars
Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner Brian Markinson as Gary Lambert John Apicella as Greg Pincus Cynthia Preston as Nancy Aaronson Roger Cross as Agent Rice Owen Walstrom as Mark Backus Dmitry Chepovetsky as Supervisor Leslie Jones as Gretchen Starns Nancy Kerr as Nurse Brenda McDonald as Mrs. Loach Time Bissett as Medical Assistant Steve Bacic as SWAT Commander Grant Gladish as SWAT Teamer Robert Luft as Male Telemarketer Norma Jean Wick as Newscaster Cheryl McNamara as Hostage #1 Biski Gusushe as Hostage #2 Karin Title as Hostage #3 Stacee Copeland as Hostage #4
Episode chronology
← Previous "The Pine Bluff Variant" Next → "The End"
List of Season 5 episodes List of The X-Files characters

"Folie a Deux" is the nineteenth episode of the fifth season of television series The X-Files. "Folie a Deux" features a man who is the only one who can see that his boss is a monster and is turning his coworkers into monsters as well.

Plot

Gary Lambert is a telemarketer at an Illinois company called VinylRite, and believes that his seemingly normal boss, Greg Pincus, is a disguised insect-like monster. Lambert records an audio-taped manifesto and sends it to a radio station, demanding that it be played twenty-four hours a day; on the tape, he claims that a monster which "hides in the light" stalks employees at VinylRite. The radio station sends the tape to the FBI, where Assistant Director Skinner assigns Agent Mulder to investigate. Mulder thinks he is being purposely sent on a wild goose chase, and advises Agent Scully not to join him as he travels to Illinois.

Mulder meets with Pincus and lets him hear the audiotape, and notices the phrase "hiding in the light"; he later calls Scully and asks her to find past X-Files containing the phrase. After Mulder's visit, Pincus begins summoning Lambert's co-workers for "employee evaluations". One of them, Nancy Aaronson, enters Pincus' office, where Lambert hears her screaming. When she returns, Lambert sees that she has been turned into a living corpse; she seems normal to everyone else. Lambert flees to his apartment and arms himself with an AK-47. He returns to VinylRite to take Pincus and the other employees hostage. When Mulder returns, Lambert—unaware he is an FBI agent—takes him hostage as well.

In the basement cafeteria, the only large room in the building without windows, Lambert screams out that his boss, Pincus, is a mind-controlling monster and claims that a group of employees are zombies. An alleged zombie, Mark Backus, tries to disarm Lambert only to get shot dead. Mulder, pretending to be a prospective employee at the company, tries to reason with Lambert, conspicuously unbuttoning the gun holster under the jacket. Agent Rice, notwithstanding Scully's cautioning, calls Mulder's cell phone, which alerts Lambert of Mulder's true identity and the fact that he has a handgun.

A SWAT officer disguised as a cameraman is sent inside to provide agents on the outside with a disposition of Lambert and hostages. Lambert, oblivious to the fact that the camera broadcasts only in a closed circuit mode, tells everyone about Pincus being a monster. The lights are cut, but before the SWAT team moves in Lambert forces Mulder to look behind him. Mulder hears a clicking sound and looks at Pincus who, for an instant, appears to be a large insect. Just then the FBI break into the room, before Lambert can open fire, he is shot dead but tells Mulder that now he knows too as he dies.

At Lambert's house, Mulder finds a map of Pincus' movement over some years, many of which correspond to other cases of psychotic breaks similar to Lambert's. He then notices Nancy Aaronson, the blonde woman Lambert claimed was a zombie, through a window and looking as corpse-like as Lambert saw her. By the time Mulder gets outside, however, Aaronson and Pincus are driving away quickly.

The forensic pathologist tells Scully that the corpse of Mark Backus appears to have been dead for two to three days, although the man had been killed only hours before.

At the house of a female brunette employee at night, Mulder looks through the window, seeing the beast and immediately hearing a loud scream. Mulder breaks the window and then kicks in the door. Behind him, out of his sight, the beast walks across the ceiling. Mulder catches a glimpse of it crawling up the outside of the house.

In Skinner’s office, Pincus and the brunette complain about Mulder's intrusion. Mulder sees Pincus, standing behind Skinner, turn into the creature. He immediately draws his weapon, but is restrained by Skinner and then sedated in a hospital.

Mulder claims that the creature bit the back of the brunette's head. Scully re-examines Mark's corpse and finds three puncture marks at the top of the spine marking the corners of an equilateral triangle.

In the hospital, Mulder is restrained in his bed and hears the clicking and sees the silhouette of the beast at the window. He screams, and the nurse comes and sees nothing, but then opens the window with a sinister look on her face. When she turns around, a small puncture wound on her neck is revealed. The creature reappears when she leaves, with Mulder restrained and defenseless against the creature.

Scully goes to visit Mulder. The nurse refuses access but for a moment Scully sees her as a corpse. Scully runs to Mulder's room, sees the beast on the wall over Mulder, and shoots at it. It leaps through the partially open window, breaking the glass and wooden frame.

Scully reports to Skinner that she believes Mulder is sane and fit for duty, and she notes that Pincus and several other key witnesses have disappeared, that there was an intruder in Mulder's room, and that Mulder was right, Mark did have some sort of unknown toxin injected into his spine. On exiting Skinner's office, she tells Mulder that she told Skinner the truth, that she had a "Folie à deux – a madness shared by two", in French.

The epilogue is in a call center where an operator hears a familiar clicking sound — the same sound Lambert heard at the beginning of the episode — and whispers nervously "It's here", the same phrase Lambert muttered in the opening. The creature's sounds are heard while the credits roll.

Title reference

Folie à deux is a form of insanity shared by two people. It usually begins with one person who conceives of a delusional belief and then spreads it to another; thus, those two share the same delusion.

Reception

The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 11.0, with an 17 share. A total of 17.63 million viewers watched this episode during its original airing.

External links

• "Folie a Deux" on The X-Files, an external wiki
• "Folie a Deux" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Folie a Deux" at TV.com