The List (The X-Files)

"The List"
The X-Files episode
Fox Mulder interrogating a prisoner
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 5
Directed by	Chris Carter
Written by	Chris Carter
Production code	3X05
Original air date	October 20, 1995
Guest stars
Bokeem Woodbine as Sammon Roque Badja Djola as Napoleon "Neech" Manley John Toles-Bey as John Speranza Ken Foree as Vincent Parmelly April Grace as Danielle Manley J. T. Walsh as Warden Brodeur Greg Rogers as Daniel Charez Mitchell Kosterman as Fornier Paul Raskin as Jim Ullrich Denny Arnold as Key Guard Craig Brunanski as Guard Joseph Patrick Finn as Chaplain Bruce Pinard as Executioner (uncredited)
Episode chronology
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List of season 3 episodes List of The X-Files episodes

"The List" is the fifth episode of the third season of The X-Files television series. "The List" involves the agents' investigation of a case where a death row inmate declares that he will be reincarnated and that as a result five men will die.

Plot

Napoleon "Neech" Manley, an inmate on Florida's death row, is brought to the electric chair. Before he is executed, Neech proclaims that he will be reincarnated and avenge himself against five men who tormented him in prison. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are brought in to investigate when a prison guard is mysteriously found dead in Neech's cell. Upon arriving at the prison, the agents meet the warden, Brodeur, who believes that Neech planned the guard's murder with someone on the outside before the execution. Speranza, another inmate, believes that Neech has returned. When Scully examines the guard's body, it is crawling with fly larvae. When she later explores the prison's showers, Scully meets another guard named Parmelly. He claims that another prisoner, Roque, is keeping a list of the remaining four victims.

Later, the head of another guard, Fornier, is found inside a paint can. An examination of the head shows the premature appearance of larvae. The prison coroner tells Scully that the first guard's lungs were completely infested with larvae, belonging to the green bottle fly. Meanwhile, Mulder talks to Roque, who wants a transfer out of the prison in exchange for revealing the remaining three people on the list. Brodeur refuses to make the deal, right before finding Fornier's headless body in his office. When the agents search Neech's cell, Mulder finds his diary and discovers his obsession with reincarnation. Scully, of course, is skeptical. They later talk to Neech's fearful widow, Danielle, who is secretly seeing Parmelly. Roque is brought to the showers, where he is beaten to death by Brodeur after revealing he is the fifth person on the list.

Brodeur puts the prison under lockdown, ostensibly to bring the situation under control. He tells Mulder that Neech had a violent history with all three victims. Mulder believes that Neech came back for revenge against the guards, but doubts that Roque was on the list. He requests that he be provided with the name of Neech's executioner, who turns out to be a volunteer named Perry Simon. The agents arrive at Simon's home to discover his decomposing body in the attic. Mulder confronts Speranza about the list, but Speranza only tells him that Roque wasn't on it. He claims to have seen Neech "big as life" outside of his cell. Based on phone records, Scully theorizes that Neech's lawyer, Danny Charez, may have engineered the murders with Speranza. The agents interview Charez, who tells them about Danielle's relationship with Parmelly; after they leave, Charez is suffocated by a resurrected Neech.

Brodeur visits Speranza in his cell, and offers to have his death sentence commuted in exchange for stopping the murders. Speranza takes the offer. That night, Parmelly visits Danielle, who has become agitated since Mulder and Scully have begun staking out her house. The agents now suspect Parmelly to be behind the murders and leave to notify Brodeur, who asks that Parmelly be arrested. Soon afterward, Danielle wakes up to see Neech by her bed. She grabs her gun and confronts Parmelly, thinking he is Neech's resurrected form. The agents and a police task force arrive to see her shoot and kill Parmelly. Meanwhile, Brodeur -- assuming that Charez and Parmelly were on the list -- thinks Speranza has reneged on their deal and has him taken to the showers. Before Brodeur kills him, Speranza claims that one person remains on the list.

Parmelly is blamed for the murders. The agents start to leave Florida, but Mulder soon pulls over. He remains frustrated, since Parmelly was on-duty during only one murder, and wasn't one of the three men who knew Perry Simon's confidential identity. He also points out inconsistencies in the actions of Parmelly and Roque, who was also assumed to be part of the plot. Mulder believes that Parmelly wasn't responsible for the deaths, and that Neech had indeed been reincarnated to enact his revenge. However, Scully convinces Mulder that the case is over, and that they should return home. Just then, Brodeur passes them in his car. Looking in his rear view mirror, he sees Neech, who attacks Brodeur and causes his car to crash into a tree, claiming his last victim.

Production

The episode ended up going over budget due to the construction of the prison set, which was later used again in the episodes "Teso Dos Bichos" and "Talitha Cumi". The set was also rented out to other productions in Vancouver, Canada. The set took 10 days to build, making it one of the most complicated jobs for the show's staff during the season. Real maggots were used during many of the scenes, which were described by Gillian Anderson as being the hardest animals to work with on the show. The show's special effects producers were unable to create a full body replica of the first victim in time, requiring him to lay on an autopsy table with makeup applied while the maggots were poured on to him. Rice was used in place of the maggots during some of the scenes. The car crash at the end of the episode was described by stunt coordinator Tony Morelli as the most harrowing action sequence during the show's third season. To give the episode a different look the producers applied a green palatte to the film in post-production.

The executioner, Perry Simon, was named after an NBC executive producer that writer/director Chris Carter knew. Joseph Patrick Finn, one of the show's producers, played the prison chaplain.

Reception

Story editor Frank Spotnitz said of the episode, "I think this is a vastly underrated episode. I also think it was a very brave and different show to do and that it will weather the test of time very well. I think it was brave because there is not a single likable character - nobody you can root for. Mulder and Scully do not solve the case, and that is something I had been interested in doing for some time." Chris Carter was nominated for an award by the Directors Guild of America for his work on this episode. Author Phil Farrand was very critical of the episode, calling it his third least favorite episode of the first four seasons in his book The Nitpickers Guide to the X-Files.

This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.8, with a 19 share. It was viewed by 16.72 million people. Entertainment Weekly gave "The List" a B+, describing it as "standard but well executed". Zack Handlen, writing for The A.V. Club, had mixed feelings about the episode, ultimately rating it a B-. He felt that "The List" embodied a bland stand-alone X-Files episode for its underveloped concept and script, with "attempts at drama" that had no depth, and "sideplots [that] have so little effect on the main narrative as to be basically padding". Handlen however praised the cinematography and art direction, the performances of both Ken Foree and J.T. Walsh, and the final scene, but ultimately considered that "once you get past the set-design and cinematography, you end up with some good lines and a few scary moments, and that's it'"

External links

• "The List" on The X-Files Wiki, an external wiki
• "The List" at the Internet Movie Database
• "The List" at TV.com