Good Cop, Insane Cop: The Adventures of Moose & Squirrel

Recap by As An Amoeba

Shadoooooooows. I picked this episode because it’s really spooky and atmospheric, and because the concept of “ghosts” really makes us think about what it means to toil upon the earth as a human b…heh, just kidding. I picked it because it’s full of bad hair, white tights, weird acting, and other entertaining, goofy Season 1-ery. It’s just one of those mid-S1 randos that isn’t really all that good yet somehow is also a lot of fun. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Here in the teaser, we’re in an office, which, if the nameplate is any indication, belongs to one Howard Graves, a name which I’m sure will in no way turn out to be a hilarious pun. Someone offscreen is crying. Wow, you really sound like a girl when you cry, Howard Graves. We pan past a glass desk plaque thing on which is engraved the quote: “One To-day is Worth Two To-morrows.” This is attributed, in possibly the most hideous Things Remembered-y font ever designed, to Ben Franklin. Let me be a dorky proofreader for a moment and say that the size of the hyphens in that font is seriously wack. Also, a hyphen is not an em dash. And init-cap “is” — it’s a verb! Doesn’t matter how many letters it has! Take that, BEN FRANKLIN! Dumbass.

The sniffling continues as the onscreen legend informs us that we’re at HTG Industrial Technologies, Philadelphia, PA. We pass a completely accurate and un-retouched photo of someone, perhaps our friend Howard Graves, with I think President Bush (no, not that one — the other one), and then a picture of the same guy with President Reagan. And one with Clinton! The Clinton one is down lower and has a brown mat. Stupid tree-hugging liberals! Clinton’s applauding and looking terribly tickled at something Presumably Howard Graves has just said. Oh, Howard, don’t fall for that legendarily seductive charm. You know he’ll only hurt you in the end. A woman’s hand takes the picture from the wall, and we continue panning to see that the hand, and the crying, belong to a somewhat mousy-looking lady in a headband and an extremely poufy teal silk blouse with two giant flap pockets on the boobs. I used to have a silk blouse very like that, only blue. Remember when you were supposed to tuck shit in and then pull it like, 80 percent of the way back out? Because that was…slimming? Perhaps. In making you look as if you were wearing a tire around your waist, it reduced the apparent size of your ass? Could be. I don’t remember. All I know is, you were supposed to do it, and anyone who didn’t was a loser. Ah, high school. Could you have been more awesome? I think not. (Also…that’s back in style, isn’t it? Never mind — I don’t want to know.) Anyway, the crying lady puts the picture of Clinton and Pretty Much Definitely Howard Graves into a box. She’s cleaning out the office. What could have happened to Howard Graves? Why is the lady crying? Will we soon see some paranormal activity? Oh, X-Files. You will never, I repeat, never run out of scary stories.

Another woman comes in, telling Early ’90s Administrative Assistant Casual, now revealed to us as Lauren, that she’s been looking for her. When she sees that Lauren’s crying, she stops and kindly offers her some water. I don’t know about you, but I firmly believe that water cures everything. Sore throat? I drink water. Dizzy? Water. Headache? Water. Stomach ache? Water. I’m not kidding. Water rules. Lauren declines, though. She and her colleague, Jane, exposit that Howard Graves killed himself two weeks ago, and that Lauren’s pretty shaken up about it. Jane suggests that she go home, and hands her her paycheck. Woo-hoo! Remember when your paycheck came in an envelope instead of in an e-mail telling you that your paycheck had been direct-deposited? Jane leaves, and Lauren mulls for a bit and then turns to leave too. But as she approaches the door, there’s a sound that makes her turn. The Ben Franklin paperweight thing has slid a few inches over on the desk. Can it be? Did we imagine it, or did it really move? Yes, it did, because the camera showed it to us a second ago while Lauren’s back was turned. Hey, way to stretch out the suspense there, guys! Lauren picks up the paperweight, smiles, cradles it to her bosom, and leaves.

Night. Lauren’s at the ATM, depositing her paycheck, when she gets jumped by some thugs. See? Direct deposit, man. Can’t beat it. Lauren screams that she has no money, but has the shit beat out of her anyway as we fade to black.

Two hours later, as the chyron (is that what that thing is called?) tells us. A couple of slackers are wandering the streets and decide to scale a fire escape. Boy Slacker boosts Girl Slacker, who says the fire escape’s stuck. They pull harder, and — BODIES! The bodies of both ATM thugs fall from somewhere above, one of them helpfully into a dumpster. The slackers run in terror. Doodly doodly doo! Doo doo doo! Etc.

Bethesda Naval Hospital. Who are those shadowy government figures walking down that darkened corridor? One of the is teeny, and one of them has impressively poufed hair. It’s Mulder and Scully! They enter a morgue. What else is new? Scully’s suit is purple. Not cranberry, not a deep indigo blue, not even magenta. Just plain old purple. The color of Grimace. And she’s wearing white tights. And frowning. I love Scully so very much. Mulder and some other guy follow her in. There are two tables with bodies covered in white sheets, and behind them a man and a woman in suits and a woman in a white lab coat. Apparently, Chief Blevins has assured them of Mulder and Scully’s cooperation. Good one, Blevins! The suit woman hopes that their “expertise in extraordinary phenomenon” (hee — those Latin plurals are a bitch sometimes) will be of help. Mulder and Scully look impassive. Scully’s bangs look really weird. “You’re not FBI, are you?” Mulder asks. The Suit Duo look impassive right back. It’s an Impassive-Looking Contest! Dudes, you cannot out-impassive Mulder and Scully, I’m telling you right now. Lab Coat Lady pulls back the sheets over the corpses; one of them jerks violently, and Scully starts a little. Lab Coat explains that both bodies are still responding to high levels of static electricity. Mulder puts on his HOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT glasses to study the file handed to him. Apparently, the men died six hours ago…but the bodies are still warm. Son of a bitch! Scully rubs her hands lovingly over the dead guy’s warm, life-radiating chest (Scully? I think you need to get out more) while Mulder starts getting all huffy with the Mysterious Suit-Wearing Pair, just because they hauled him and Scully out to Bethesda in the middle of the night for reasons they won’t disclose, semi-threatened them by waving around the name of their mean boss, and now won’t say anything! Geez, he’s such a reactionary. Anyway, the suits won’t tell them anything other than the fact that the men were on a one-hour flight from somewhere to get here. (Hmmm…”One-Hour Flight from Somewhere”? NaNoWriMo, here I come!)

So the big thing here is that the men’s throats have been crushed, but there’s no evidence of tissue damage. As if they were crushed by ALIENS! OK, no, not aliens. It’s as if their throats were crushed…from the INSIDE. But that’s not POSSIBLE! Well, except if it was a ghost.

But in the meantime, what Scully wants to know is, if they’ve done their autopsies already, why do they need the ‘Filers? Choosing to answer a question with a question, the Suits ask whether they’ve ever investigated anything like this in all the five episodes they’ve been doing this. Mulder assures them they have not. There is a cool diagram of skulls on the wall behind him. “Well, thank you for your time, Agents Mulder, Scully,” Man Suit says. “If any inquiry as to this meeting be made, we request full denial.” And don’t forget to tip your waitress! Actually, I think I should start adding that to the end of all my social encounters. “Well, it was awesome to see you, Megan! Good luck with grad school, and let me know how it goes with Dan! Have a safe trip back. And if any inquiry as to this meeting be made, I request full denial.” Mulder shoots back with the grade-A zinger, “I’d say you people already suffer from full denial.” OH! SNAP! Oh no he DI-INT! Score one for the MULD-STARRR! Always leaving ‘em wanting more, he puts his hand on Scully’s purple back and swoops her out of the autopsy bay.

As they walk down the hall, Scully tells Mulder that she can tell he has seen it before. “I would never lie,” Mulder says smoothly. “I willfully participated in a campaign of misinformation.” These are what passes for Mulderisms in this episode? Weak, man! Why don’t you throw in a joke about how leverage isn’t a verb? Now that it’s the ’80s and America is going so corporate, the jokes just write themselves! It’s just yuppie, yuppie, yuppie, spend, spend, spend! (/Steve Martin) Who wrote this one, anyway?…MORGAN AND WONG?!?! Really?? Wow. I did not realize that. I thought I smelled Gordon and Gansa all over this one. OK then.

Mulder tells Scully he’s got files with similarities to this case, but none with all the elements in one case. This is what you call a paranormal jackpot, right here. He says he knows what could cause the mystery throat-crushing: psychokinesis. He says this all in his Crazy Mulder voice, which you know he loves putting on to rile Scully up. It works — she gets all giggly-skeptical (that’s something different from bitchy-skeptical or scared-skeptical — she’s got a lot of skepticals, Scully does) and goes, “You mean how Carrie got even at the prom?” According to Mulder, the Russians and the Chinese are doing secret studies on psychokinesis. How Mulder knows this he does not elaborate, but if the Russians are running gulags where they strap you down with chicken wire and pour black oil into your nose until you cut your own arm off, I can believe they’re doing psychokinesis studies. Scully silently hems and haws and then…admits that she’s intrigued. Of course she is. How can you resist Mulder? He’s crazy and hot and he wants to take you on an adventure. You can’t not go on the adventure with Mulder! That would just be a waste. They get onto the elevator. Scully stares at Mulder. Mulder stares at Scully. Mulder puts his arm around Scully’s shoulder (DUDE! THEY ARE TOTALLY ABOUT TO GET IT ON IN THIS ELEVATOR) and holds up his glasses (oh — maybe not), and breathes on them, fogging them up. Scully recovers from the arm thing and pays attention to the glasses. There on the lenses are two giant fingerprints. Lord, Mulder, how can you see out of those? Oh, they’re one of the dead guys’ fingerprints. Smart!

Back at HTG the next morning, Lauren, now in a paisley dress that I think I see Stacy and Clinton throw out every week on What Not to Wear, dashes into the office, a little late. A matronly-looking secretary passive-aggressively observes that it’s very nice how Mr. Graves used to let Lauren get away with that sort of behavior, but now Mr. Dorlund is in charge. What with Mr. Graves being dead. So, you can keep on being late to work until your lenient boss kicks the bucket! That’s a good rule for the workplace. Lauren asks if she can see Mr. Dorlund. Mr. Dorlund’s bitchy gatekeeper consults a schedule book (MeetingMaker, people! Oh, right — 1993) and prissily informs Lauren that she may see Mr. Dorlund tomorrow at 3. Lauren asks if she can please see him today; it’s really important. Just then, Bitchy Gatekeeper’s coffee mug tips over. Coffee all over the desk. Lauren whips out a bunch of tissues and helps her wipe it up while Bitchy Gatekeeper flutters and well-I-nevers. As they’re cleaning it up, Mr. Dorlund himself!!!! comes out of his office to see what all the ruckus is. Lauren seizes the moment and asks if she can speak to him, and he escorts her into his office.

Once inside, Lauren tells Mr. Dorlund (who reminds me of CSM, and that is one ugly wig he has on) (except I suffer from a deficiency that renders me incapable of accurately guessing when someone is wearing a wig, so knowing me, it’s probably his real hair and I just horribly insulted him) that she’s giving her two-week notice. Mr. Dorlund says that Jane told him about her crying in Howard’s office (for Christ, Jane, that was PERSONAL, you fricking blabbermouth), and he wants her to know she’s not alone. He reminds Lauren, while coincidentally and helpfully informing the audience, that he and Howard founded the company, and because they were all such one-dimensional workaholics, the company became their family. Lauren was like a daughter to Howard, and so Mr. Dorlund feels close to her too. Uh, I’m getting the feeling this is all leading to a giant sexual-harassment suit. Lauren, did you read that notice HR put up on the bulletin board in the break room? Because I think you might want to go do that. Mr. D. lays it on thick, telling Lauren the company needs her and he wants to take care of her. Then he suddenly randomly grabs her face and says he won’t let her leave. I guess the ghost of Howard Graves — er, I mean, the mysterious phenomenon of unknown origin that Lauren keeps observing — has had enough of that shit, and Mr. Dorlund’s…gold bracelet?…snaps really hard around his wrist. That smarts! (Seriously, Ghost of Howard Graves, that’s kind of lame. Tightening his bracelet to distract him? What are you, the Dog Whisperer? And no, it’s not a watch — his watch is on the other hand. The dude is wearing a gold chain around his wrist.) Lauren takes advantage of the distraction and displays her calm assertiveness by telling Mr. Dorlund she’s leaving, and then leaving. Probably wise. “You’ve got two weeks,” Mr. Dorlund says creepily. Do stop by HR on the way out, Lauren, won’t you?

Back at XF HQ, Mulder’s using a newfangled device called a kom-pyoo-tur (instead of his usual trip to the microfilm machine) to look up the owner of the prints he lifted. The dead guy was affiliated with an extremist group called the Isfahan. He’s done some explosives-possessing and the like. Scully notes that the group has recently been working out of Philadelphia. “That’s 60 air minutes,” Mulder says in his Voice of Significance. If nothing else, hopefully the muggers got some free miles out of this deal. Scully gets all big owl eyes at him. God, she’s so cute in these early episodes with how amazed she gets about everything. “I’ll talk to the Philly PD,” she says, trying not to jump up and down. An adventure! With Mulder! She pretends she has to go home and pack and that she doesn’t already have a fully equipped duffel bag and a passport stashed behind the copier.

Philly! City of Partnerly Lurve. Well, seven years from now. And not in Philly. Eh, whatever. Mulder and Scully are at the scene where the bodies were found, questioning the cop who found them. He says he just ran into them on patrol. Mulder wanders away while Scully’s talking to the cop, and sees the old-timeiest ATM ever. A lady is getting out some money, and she gives Mulder a dirty look as she leaves. Mulder gets that light-bulb expression as he looks at the ATM.

Cut to fast-forwarded video from the ATM’s camera. (How did the regular cops not think of this? Isn’t a security camera the first thing you look at when investigating a crime?) There’s a parade of Canadian extras getting out cash in fast-forward. Mulder and Scully are sitting in an office watching (I’m not sure if they’re back in DC or maybe at a field office or something in Philadelphia), and Scully — oh, Scully. This has got to be one of the greatest Season 1 outfits of all time. She’s wearing an orange blouse with a black jacket over it, a giant digital watch, and — you can’t see this yet, but it’s the best part — the white tights that she’s wearing throughout this whole blessed episode. Yes, an orange blouse, a black skirt suit, and white tights. And a huge digital watch. HOW can you not LOVE her? She BOUGHT that outfit. On purpose. With money. I mean, in the show. Gillian presumably RECEIVED money for putting this getup on, which is more appropriate. She’s saying that they’ll have to question everybody who was at the ATM that night, until — you guessed it. The thugs grab Lauren, right in front of the security camera. Wow. Maybe the concept of a security camera was new back then. Lucky break for Mulder and Scully! (That was such a Law & Order moment right there. On Law & Order they will reach a dead end and everybody’s standing around in the squad room all, “Well, I guess that’s that, we’re stuck,” and somebody ALWAYS comes in right at that moment and overhears them and says “Not necessarily!” or something and produces some crucial piece of evidence that gets them going again. It’s really hilarious how often that happens. Gosh, but I’ve been watching a lot of Law & Order lately. SVU only, naturally. Oh, Stabler. Get unhealthily emotionally invested in ME, baby.)

Scully was, of course, looking out the window or in the other room or lying face down in the snow or chasing a bunny rabbit or something when the important thing happened, so Mulder rewinds. Scully audibly gasps (hee! It’s so AMAZING!) and consults her notes. It’s Lauren Kyte, and she was getting out 40 bucks. Why would the Isfahan steal somebody’s 40 bucks directly in front of an ATM security camera? Mulder, however, really couldn’t care less about this, because there’s a smudge in the video. A! SMUDGE! You heard correctly! This can only mean one thing: Paranormal activity! Scully suggests that maybe it’s another person. “Maybe. Maybe not,” says Mulder, which means, “It’s obviously a supernatural apparition, you idiot, are you blind?” The image is too blurry to enhance — yes, even with the fake TV “enhancing” that can do shit like rotate a face around 40 degrees or “zoom in” on somebody’s class ring from a satellite image or what have you — so there’s only one person left in that video who is neither dead nor a smudge, and they’d better go talk to her.

Lauren is in her house, which is country-cluttered enough that it would give Doug Wilson a panic attack. She has managed to coordinate her teal blouse with her fireplace, which is covered in teal tile, which looks just awesome with the dark cherry trim. I cannot express how ’80s that fireplace is. There’s also a lot of wallpaper, and a lot of it is floral. And there’s a corner cabinet with some ruffly wood trim. And a random folding chair next to the fireplace. Maybe she’s going to burn it for fuel. And an oil painting over the fireplace? Geez. Anyway, Lauren’s packing boxes in her Totally ’90s: Casual outfit. And she’s holding a can of delicious, refreshing Pepsi. You’ve got the right one, baby! Uh-huh! She has a big giant furry kitty that I immediately want. She dumps him off her newspaper and picks it up. Wandering over to the mantelpiece, she avoids eye contact with her huge oil painting and catches sight of the plaque from Howard’s desk — to-day, to-morrow, Ben Franklin, font, etc. She picks it up, a thoughtful look on her face. And — there’s a knock on the door. Her extremely wooden door surrounded by more wood. Does Lauren live in a log cabin?

She quickly puts the plaque down and peeps through the peephole. There are Mulder and Scully in fish-eye glory (that always does such wonders for Mulder’s nose). She opens the door and Mulder skillfully blands his way past her halfhearted protests into the house. Oh, lord, more wallpaper, more dark wood, a sad and hideous watercolor painting, a stained-glass window, and a lamp made of gold. I swear, this house depresses the living crap out of me. I must have some unconscious association from my childhood or something.

Scully shows Lauren the pictures of the two Isfahan guys and asks if she’s seen them before. Hee, the second guy’s name is Rasdan Bungee. No wonder he turned to a life of crime; he probably got shit for his name his whole life. Lauren says she hasn’t and tries to hand them back to Scully. Scully flashes just the slightest bit of cautionary dimple and suggests that she take her time. Lauren hesitates, looks again, and reaffirms in the negative. “I’m afraid you have,” Scully says, and whips out a still from the surveillance video. What’s with the big shady runaround, Scully? Mulder asks Lauren to describe what happened that night. She says she got jumped, managed to escape and didn’t want to file a report. Mulder informs her that both men were found dead. Also, has she noticed that their SHOES WERE UNTIED? (Sorry, just trying to jazz things up with a little Bad Blood action.) Lauren looks upset.

“Have you ever seen this person before?” Scully asks then, and points to…oh, for God’s sake. It’s the smudge. Yes, the un-enhanceable smudge, still un-enhanced, still a smudge. This is making me think that they must have made the photo and done the closeups of it long after they filmed the rest of this, because, seriously? That is not a “person.” Not even Mulder could think it’s a person. It’s not person-shaped. If anything, it’s sort of shaped like a witch hat. But above all, it’s a smudge. But instead of saying, “Uh, taxpayer-supported wackos, this is a picture of a blur of light, not of a person” (or, even more realistically, assuming Scully pointed inaccurately and is referring to one of the three HUMAN BEINGS in the picture), Lauren says, “No — I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.” “Does that mean you KNOW?” says Mulder. You just cannot get anything by Mulder. One time there was this mystery about how a boy was brought into an operating room, and the doctor was going to operate on him but at the last minute stopped and said, “I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son!” But the doctor was NOT the boy’s father. How could that BE? But Mulder figured out that THE DOCTOR WAS THE BOY’S MOTHER! Because sometimes women can be doctors, but nobody ever thinks of that! Genius, he is. Anyway. Lauren squirms and repeats that she can’t tell them, and Mulder hands her his card and suggests in a patronizingly patient voice that when she CAN tell them, she give him a call. He and Scully condescend themselves out the door.

On the way to the car, Scully expresses skepticism that a woman Lauren’s size could break free and outrun the two men. “And crushing their necks?” Mulder concurs. Lauren peeks at them through the curtains as Scully says flatly that Lauren knows who “the other person in that photo” (seriously? BLURRY WITCH HAT) is. Mulder wonders what she’s packing to run away from.

But then they don’t care anymore, because when Mulder starts the car, the gas pedal depresses on its own, the locks lock, and the car squeals backwards. Mulder frantically tries the brake and the door handle, to zero avail. Finally he just hollers at Scully to hang on, and they smash into an oncoming car and end up in a hedge by the side of the road (at least, their stunt doubles do). Everyone’s OK, except for Scully’s hair, which is suddenly a bowl cut. At her window, Lauren stares at them and then, when she sees them looking, yanks her curtains shut. It’s almost like she KNOWS something.

Garage. And here, 16:15, is where we get the glorious full-body shot of Scully’s insane outfit. Black double-breasted skirt suit, ORANGE blouse with big pointy collar, WHITE TIGHTS, and hideous black pumps. And a briefcase bigger than she is. Let me just drink it in for a moment. Oh, I have such love for these ghastly wardrobe selections of the early days. Mulder, looking perfectly presentable and not at all dated (well…the hair, a bit), is inspecting their busted rental car. “Hi,” says Scully, and Mulder looks up and says “Hi,” and it’s somehow very cute to me, because they never do that, man. Scully says she’s fine except for a standing-in-line-at-the-DMV-sized headache (good line). Mulder says his headache is IRS-sized. Hee hee, banter. Mulder says the malfunctioning car is new — only a hundred miles on it. Scully concludes that it was tampered with, but Mulder says the mechanic found nothing wrong with it. He tells her to check out the lights, which are glowing. Scully doesn’t get it: “…They’re on.” But they’re not on. They’re a ghost! Or something. They’re chock full of glowy electrostatic charge, as a matter of fact. Just like the dead guy’s twitchy arm! The connection: Lauren. Scully reminds him that Lauren was never out of their sight at her house. Mulder stands to his full lanky height and takes a deep breath: it’s time for his Crazy Theory (That Turns Out To Be Right) Of The Week. What if it were possible to raise the body’s electrostatic charge to such a high level that you could manipulate objects? Scully says that your body would melt, only she says it in a more sciencey way. Mulder brings up his many, many X-files featuring stuff moving around in a ghostly fashion. He says that people with this power may not even know they have it. “Are you saying Lauren Kyte crashed our car?” Scully says — you guessed it — skeptically. “Either that,” says Mulder, pausing for maximum craziness effect, “or a poltergeist.” “They’re heeeeeeeere,” Scully says. Always with the cutting-edge topical humor, our Scully. Put her on Best Week Ever right now!

Scully trots after Mulder and reviews the facts — two “mideast extremists” (remember when that was a novel idea for a random villain? Sigh) were killed after assaulting a woman who works for a company that manufactures parts for the Defense Department (wait — it does? Did we know that? I thought it was just a boring company that manufactured boringness). The paranormal activity could be explained by blah blahbbity blah. Someone else may have done the weird stuff — “maybe the same person that we saw in those ATM photos!” Oh, saints preserve us. Blurry Witch Hat did not sabotage your car’s brakes, Scully. (Except it actually did, but seriously, it’s really, really goofy that Scully keeps talking about the blurry witch hat smudge as if it’s a person.) Scully refers to Blurry Witch Hat as Lauren’s accomplice. Just as she says it, the car’s lights go out. Mulder hoists his jacket over his shoulder and gives Scully a Very Significant Look. Scully pretends not to notice.

HTG, Manufacturer of Important Parts of Something. Mulder and Scully creepily sit in the car and spy on Lauren as she gets out of her car and goes to yell at a guy spray-painting a new name over a parking space. He’s getting rid of Howard Graves’s name and replacing it with the name of some other corporate bigwig by the name of Tom Braidwood. Damn you, Braidwood! I amuse myself by picturing Tom Braidwood in a suit sitting at a desk being all businessy. It doesn’t work very well, and I keep ending up with the image of him in the black tux with the flowers in One Breath. That’s about as corporate as I’ve ever seen Fro. Anyway, Lauren’s really upset that they’re painting over Howard’s name. She shoos the painter away and says she’ll take care of it as Mulder and Scully ponder. “So who is Howard Graves, anyway?” Mulder asks.

Cue the microfilm! I guess that high-tech computer business was a little over their heads. They’re back at I guess the Philly field office; it looks like the same office from before. Scully finds an article about Howard Graves’s suicide. She reaches back and taps Mulder on the hand without looking (I love how she does that), and he peers over her shoulder. They learn (finally) that Lauren was Graves’s secretary, and Mulder can’t help pointing out that three people in a month have died that were associated with Lauren. Mulder, you’re barking up the wrong tree here, babe. Listen to your partner — believe it or not, she’s on the right track blaming everything on the blurry witch hat.

More spying on Lauren, this time while she’s at Graves’s grave, with some flowers and some extremely high-waisted pants. After she leaves, Moulder and Skully (see? They’re not just annoyingly common misspellings, they’re also grave puns!) sidle up to the grave and take a gander themselves. Next to the departed Howard is Sarah Lynn Graves, born 1966, died 1969. Aw. Gravestones with close-together dates like that always catch me by surprise and are so sad. Behind them, some guy is planting some flowers in an extremely well-lit, stagy manner, so it’s no surprise at all when Mulder goes to ask the guy about the Graveses’ graveses (I CAN’T HELP IT, OK? They NAMED the dead guy GRAVES). The groundskeeper, who’s dressed like he’s on safari, overshares that he goes to every funeral and is “the last person to see them put to rest.” Congratulations! You’re a creepy old bastard. He explains that Sarah was Howard’s daughter, and she drowned when Howard didn’t latch the pool gate one day. A year later, his wife left him. Well, that pretty much sucks. Scully and Mulder go back to the grave. “She was only three years old,” says Special Agent Mathematical Genius. “If she had lived, she’d be Lauren’s age,” says Special Agent Spelling Things Out For The Non-Mathematical Geniuses Among The Viewing Audience. I wonder if that fact will have any significance?

Here’s Mulder, in a…darkroom? I…what? They have to develop their own pictures? Also, where the hell ARE they? Now Scully’s in a casual shirt in front of a computer in what looks like her own house. They went home in the middle of the investigation? I mean, maybe it’s a hotel, but it’s a desktop computer. I know her laptop burned up in the pilot, but you’d think the FBI would have gotten her a new one by NOW. Can you even bring a jumbo-sized 1993 CPU and monitor in your checked luggage? Or is she using some hotel computer? That seems indiscreet. Anyway, she’s typing up her statement…of the obvious, saying that Lauren and Howard had a close relationship. Yay, we’re 21 minutes in and Mulder and Scully have finally figured out what we found out in the teaser. She also says that Lauren’s estranged from her family. She figures that if they can find Lauren’s “accomplice,” the blurry witch hat, it’ll all fall into place.

Meanwhile, Mulder’s looking at his newly developed pictures on a light table with a magnifying thingy (is that called a loupe?), no doubt hoping to see some more awesome pictures of Blurriest Accomplice Ever. I guess these are the pictures they took during their apparently weeks and weeks of stalking — sorry, surveilling Lauren. He finds one of Lauren’s house and sees figures standing in the window. Now we’re in some kind of office/computer lab, where a guy is finally doing the magical TV-land computer-photo-enhancing. It’s about time. Next to Lauren in the window is — a blurry figure! Of a human being! Not shaped like a witch hat! It’s even wearing a tie! They “enhance” it some more, and Scully pronounces it Howard Graves. Sure, NOW it looks like Howard Graves. How do you know this computer guy didn’t just Photoshop a picture of his face on top of the blur? You two can’t work computers! Do you even know what Photoshop is? Well, maybe Photoshop hadn’t been invented yet. Also, the computer guy is a middle-aged man wearing a suit — he doesn’t even look like a computer guy. Anyway, we’re taking his word for it — Howard Graves is in the picture next to Lauren, except kind of indistinct. “He’s alive,” Scully says. “Not necessarily,” Mulder says. You’re right — it could be a life-size cardboard cutout of himself that Howard had made for Lauren before he died. My sister has one of David Ortiz. It’s pretty awesome.

Lauren’s house, on a spooooooooky windy night. Her awesomely fluffy and unusually colored cat that I covet growls and then leaps off Lauren’s bed, waking her up. There is a creeeeeeeeaking on the stairs. Oh, scary stories! You never get old. Lauren tiptoes out the door, holding a baseball bat. There are voices — “Stop! No! Don’t do this to me!” “Howard,” Lauren whispers. “Please, no!” Howard continues, until Lauren follows the voices to the bathroom and flips on the light. She pulls back the shower curtain and — the tub is full of water, with a bloom of blood sprouting right in the middle. OK, I’ll admit that’s a pretty cool and creepy image. The voices have stopped. Lauren stares as the blood continues to fill the tub, then the water swirls down the drain. “Howard,” she gasps. “They killed him.”

Commercial, or there would have been one back when we had to contend with such things, and then Scully and Mulder are tromping down some industrial stairs at something called the National Bureau of Medical Examiners (man, that must be a fun office to work in) while Scully spoil-sports, “I think Howard Graves fabricated his own death.” I would like to point out that Mulder is wearing pleated pants. I disapprove of pleated pants in all forms, Mulder. Mulder informs her that only one man has pulled that off — Elvis. I just read that Morgan and Wong made Mulder an Elvis fan to annoy David because he hates Elvis. That’s kinda hilarious. I also hate Elvis, so I am down with that, Duchov. (I mean, I don’t HATE Elvis, I just don’t LOVE Elvis, so I might as well hate Elvis, because I constantly have to hear about how awesome Elvis is, which gets really annoying when I don’t love Elvis as everyone else does and essentially leads me to more or less hate Elvis. See: Moore, Julianne; Winehouse, Amy; City, Sex and the.) Ignoring Mulder (she’s already quite good at that), Scully theorizes gossipily that Howard and Lauren are in some kind of illegal company deal. “You may be right,” Mulder says, in that laconic way. “Wait,” Scully says, stopping him. “…You think I’m right?” “Sure,” he says easily. “All you gotta do is prove Howard Graves is still alive.”

Cut to a closeup on a woman who’s another Carter regular — three XFs and one Millennium, and lately I’ve seen her as the priest on BSG — who I always think of as the “Howard Graves is very dead” lady for reasons that will momentarily become apparent. “Howard Graves is very dead,” she says, absolutely deadpan, if you’ll pardon the pun. Zooming out tells us she’s Ellen Bledsoe, ME. “May we see the autopsy report, please?” Scully asks politely, while Mulder looks smug. “Knock yourself out,” she says, handing it over. Cause of death was arterial hemorrhage — “four out of six liters of blood down the tub.” (Do MEs really say “liters” in Not Canada? I don’t know, maybe they do.) Scully observes that some blood work is missing; but they only do those tests if they suspect homicide, which they did not. The body was positively ID’d — by Lauren Kyte. Now it’s Scully’s turn to look smug. There’s no way to confirm — he was cremated! Except for his organs. Which were donated. I…geez, this is a lot of trouble to go to to find the identity of a blurry witch hat.

Cut to some guy at UPenn, who tells them that Howard’s organs have been shipped far and wide. However, he’s got some leftover bone marrow, or something, so he’ll confirm the donor’s identity for them. For probably seven thousand dollars. Seriously, I sometimes wonder how much some of this crap costs. Just call me Chesty Short, I guess. (Hey! Bitches.) Also — Dude! The UPenn Guy In White Coat Having Something To Do With Organs Or Something is totally the funeral-home director from Bad Blood. Repeat business! Heeee.

Par-tay at Haunted Parts-Manufacturing Company Of Murder And Deception! It’s Lauren’s farewell party. Lauren’s wearing a sweater vest with what looks like big embroidered multicolored Christmas trees on it (of course she is). Jane, who is played by another of those wonderfully regular-looking Canadian actors that I love so well, calls Lauren over and hands her her final paycheck — “I made them rush so you could have your check before you leave.” Oh, Jane. You do love to hand over paychecks. Or paycheques, as you probably call them. She gets a little teary about Lauren’s departure; Lauren laughingly hands her some champagne. Oh, many’s the champagne serving I’ve slurped out of those assembly-required plastic champagne cups. Good times. Ain’t no party like an office party with free booze! Also, it sounds like they hired a jazz pianist for this shindig. Man, who knew there was so much money in making parts? It’s second only to making things and dealies.

Lauren wanders over to her desk and picks up a box of stuff. She’s feeling a bit pensive, is Lauren. She goes to Howard’s office and steps inside. Then she hears the door close, and — uh-oh, it’s effing Mr. Dorlund, looking as sexual-harassment-y as ever. He pretends to be friendly for about .002 seconds before launching right into a threat: He knows Howard “told [her],” and if “it” ever gets out he’ll know who leaked it. What the hell is he talking about? BTW, Lauren is really pretty, I don’t think I mentioned that when I was busy making fun of her clothes. This is Lisa Waltz, who I’ve seen in about twelve billion things but who I guess never really got famous. I’ve always liked her, though. Hey — IMDB tells me she actually did grow up in Pennsylvania. Cool? I guess. Anyway, I’m paused on a particularly nice still shot of her so I thought I’d mention it. She’s unusual-looking; she almost looks like a silent-movie star or something, or a doll, with those round button eyes. It’s too bad about the whole, you know, thing with the ’90s and its clothes.

Anyhoo. Back to Mr. Dorlund and his wig and his whiny threatening. “And you’ll do to me what you did to Howard?” Lauren says bravely. “I know you had him killed. He told me.” Dorlund looks creeped out, and Lauren blows by him and back out into the main office, where the party is still raging (OK…”raging” probably isn’t QUITE the right word). She sits down at a desk and picks up the phone. And calls…Mulder, who’s still chillin’ at the tissue lab or whatever it is. “How soon can you be at my house?” she asks him. Wait, it’s day where Mulder and Scully are. Is this office party in the middle of the day? Well, I guess maybe they knocked off early. Often at my office we start parties at 4. That way nobody has to stay a moment after 5 if they don’t feel like it. Bless you, academia. Scully pops up to tell Mulder that they got a match — Howard Graves is, indeed, very dead. Take that…one of you. I can’t even keep track of who’s pushing what theory in this episode anymore.

Lauren’s house. She’s packing a few final things, and — oh, there we go, now it’s completely dark. Man, I guess they couldn’t be there very soon at all. Someone knocks on the door. Lauren tries to open it, but the bolt slides shut. Hey, what’s the big idea, Graves! Mulder and Scully don’t mean any — whoops. It’s not Mulder and Scully at all, it’s…some other people, a man and a woman, who force their way in even though Ghost of Howard Graves helpfully zooms a kitchen chair up against the door. The guy is wielding a knife! Eeek! “Go run the bath,” he says to his lady friend. Uh-oh — we know no good EVER comes of that on this show. At least he doesn’t ask Lauren if her hair is normal or dry. Light bulbs start bursting all around them while Lauren screams. In the dark, she tries to get away, and G. of H. G. pins the guy against the wall with a table. If poltergeists ever hold the Furniture-Sliding Olympics, Howard is going to be going home with a bunch of blurry gold medals. The woman decides to take off and tries to open the door. But a blurry…something passes by Lauren, and holds the woman against the wall. “NOOOOOOOO,” Lauren wails, while the woman’s throat ripples AS IF CRUSHED BY SOME INVISIBLE HAND. Lightning flashes! The guy wriggles out from behind the table and stares at his partner. Then…he gets punched in the face! By a ghost. Lauren, who’s also somehow pinned against the wall, watches helplessly. Fake blood sprays everywhere.

FINALLY, Mulder and Scully toodle up in their car. Way to hustle, guys. They can hear Lauren screaming “No!!” from outside. Mulder sprints dorkily up the steps while Scully struggles with her seatbelt (sigh). He opens the front door, pushing away the body of the female attacker, and — the man is hanging in midair, AS IF HOISTED BY SOME INVISIBLE HAND. Mulder stares and stares, David pulling out his very best ASTONISHED MULDER! face. Then the man falls to the floor. THEN, Scully finally calls a mechanic to saw her out of her seatbelt, tips him, makes small talk about the weather, and busts in after Mulder, gun drawn. Lord. Remember they used to do this every time? There literally was a time when Scully JUST MISSED the paranormal activity every single week. Can you believe they bullshitted a whole series on that? I…kind of admire that, actually. Anyway, there’s Scully in her suit with the gun and the dead guy has fallen un-paranormally to the floor. She points her gun all over the place just to be safe. Lauren weeps in the corner.

Downtown! Lauren’s on ice. She hasn’t lawyered up yet. Oh, SVU. So, we’re in some kind of interrogation room. Mulder looks like he’s in a yogurt commercial with his knees bent and his feet flat on a chair next to him. Scully, leaning against the wall, reminds Lauren (again?) that she’s not under arrest, and the sooner she talks the sooner she can leave. She asks Lauren what happened to the people in her house tonight, and if she knows who they are. Lauren is indulging in some elective mutism. Mulder drifts around to Lauren’s side of the table and shows her the picture of her and Blurry, But Not Ludicrously Blurry, Howard Graves in the window. He asks her if she knows who it is, and she still doesn’t answer.

At that moment, the same two mysterious suited people from the beginning of the episode enter, and tell Mulder and Scully to beat it. Outside, Woman Suit lectures them that they’ve compromised the investigation. Mulder says they were investigating an X-FILE, not whatever their stupid case is, thank you very much. The Suit Duo demand all their notes and stuff. Wait til they get a load of the picture of the blurry witch hat. Scully retorts that THEY are the ones withholding information and suggests that they tell her and Mulder what they know instead. This suggestion is greeted with stony silencio. Also, the film is weirdly blurry here for some reason. (OH MY GOD, IT’S THE GHOST OF HOWARD GRAVES!) Anyway, when they don’t answer, Mulder tells them to go screw and he and Scully march off. Bluff called, the suits call after them and reveal that they think HTG was selling parts (parts again! This world would be a better place if humans weren’t so part-crazy, I mean to tell you) to the Isfahan. Aha! Finally, the connection. They found serial numbers in the wreckage of a recent bombing of a transport van. When Mulder asks how Lauren’s involved, Man Suit replies, “We don’t quite know — your actions impeded our investigation.” D’oh! Mulder and Scully have the grace to look a little sheepish. They have nothing on her, so if she doesn’t talk, she’s going to be released, and they won’t be able to make their case. “I could make her talk,” says Man Suit. No offense, Man Suit, but you look like a kindly bank teller. I think it might be the Steve Harvey mustache. You are not really conveying a menacing shadowy government assassin type. I can more easily imagine you in madras shorts holding a garden hose and waving to your neighbor than I can you kicking someone’s ass. Mulder leans forward and snarks, “My advice to you — Don’t get rough with her.” Or you will find yourself looking down the business end of some ectoplasm, is I’m thinking the implication there. Not that the Suit Duo understand about ghosts. Squares!

Some time and the world’s most awkward scene transition later, the Suit Duo exit the interrogation room, Woman Suit muttering that it was a waste of time. “Your turn,” says…some other guy. Who is that? He’s also wearing a suit. Remember how I was determined to keep track of these people? Is that the guy from the beginning of the episode? Eh. Maybe he had some fascinating storyline in which he falls in love with Mulder and stars in Space: Above and Beyond and it was cut from the episode because Morgan and Wong went 40 minutes over. Not that that would ever happen. Mulder and Scully trudge back into the room, Scully’s pants flapping weirdly around her ankles. She really coordinated her outfit this morning — she exactly matches the grey walls, floors, and doors of wherever this is.

“Lauren…” Scully begins, and is interrupted: “I won’t talk to you either.” Mulder, taking another tack, tells her that she’s free to go, then. Lauren looks slightly surprised, but heads for the door. Before she leaves, though, she stops, and says she can’t go back to her house. “Why?” Mulder asks. “Because of Howard Graves?” Lauren says he’s dead. “I know. He’s watching over you, isn’t he?” says Mulder. Scully looks a little flabbergasted but doesn’t say anything. Lauren stares at Mulder like he’s the only person in the world who ever believed her crazy story about her dead boss hanging around her house and killing people who tried to hurt her.

Cut to a tape recorder, now taking a willing Lauren’s statement. She says that she found Howard crying in his office one night, scared because some Pentagon contracts had been cancelled and the company was going to go under. He was worn down by seeing his employees worry so much (see, he’s the nice one, not like that ass Mr. Dorlund, who probably ate a baby in celebration when it became apparent that the employees were going to lose their jobs). Then one day Dorlund showed up with “that terrorist group,” the Isfahan (see? Mr. Dorlund: sexual harasser, baby-eater, and terrorist), who would buy lots of parts at high prices. Howard was crying because he’d just found out that the Isfahan had claimed responsibility for killing some sailors in Florida. Well…yeah, that’s pretty much a situation you don’t want to find yourself in. Unless you’re Mr. Dorlund, who probably dipped some babies in fondue when he found out about the murdered sailors, and then sat back in his armchair with his brandy and his cigar and tossed a couple of babies on the fire while he watched some porn starring Ann Coulter. “He was never the same,” Lauren says, “and I thought that’s why he killed himself…but he didn’t.” She says Howard showed her how Dorlund killed him in the bathtub, making it look like a suicide, so Howard wouldn’t step on his sweet, sweet, money-making deal with the terrorists. (I hope it’s become clear by now that, if Mulder and Scully don’t solve this case, the terrorists win.)

“So now Howard is protecting you?” says Mulder, while Scully sits quietly and looks flabbergasted some more. Lauren admits that it sounds ridiculous, but affirms that she believes it: “He was closer to me than my father.” She says she feels his presence and sometimes even smells his aftershave. See, you can’t let your grooming go just because you’re a ghost. I hope you slapped on some Degree while you were at it, Ghost of Howard Graves. You just KNOW that if Dorlund was a ghost he’d smell like the ghost men’s room after a ghost frat party. Lauren is leaving, she says, in the hope that Ghost of Howard Graves can move on.

“That’s not enough,” Scully says. Oh great, she’s going to get all practical now and wreck the awesome story about the ghost. Gillian’s hair is curling up like crazy in this scene. She says that Lauren can show her love for Howard by helping her and Mulder finish Howard’s unfinished business. Hmm. I guess. That seems a tad manipulative, but since it’s all in the interests of catching some terrorists, I guess it’s fine. Or seeing some sweet ghost action, if you’re Mulder. Scully puts on the big convincing eyes and says Lauren will never be able to rest if Howard doesn’t. Clearly she doesn’t believe a word of any of this, but she’s making it work. Mulder watches intently from where he’s sitting at the table. Lauren says she’ll do it. She leaves to wash up.

Mulder turns to Scully and asks her what she’s doing: “You don’t believe.” Scully affirms that she doesn’t believe in ghosts or psychowhatsihoosis, but Lauren does, and her priority is to get Lauren to help them. “Well, we may have just sacrificed our best opportunity to observe spectral phenomena,” Mulder bitches. Oh, cram it, Mulder. See, I told you he didn’t care about the terrorists. MULDER HATES AMERICA! Scully counters that she’s giving them the chance to solve an ACTUAL case instead of The Case of the Blurry Witch Hat. Mulder is not trying to hear that.

FBI raid! No, not FBI panty raid. That’s season 7. A bunch of guys in FBI jackets assemble in a parking garage with Lauren, Mulder and Scully. Gillian takes a deep, deep breath and launches into her forty-seventh take of hollering at everyone about what they’re looking for: “evidence pertaining to the sale of restricted manufactured parts,” essentially. Really, I remember an interview with Gillian where she said she could NOT get this scene because she was too freaked out to yell at everybody like she was in charge. Thankfully, Man Suit, standing beside her, continues, saying they should be careful not to take anything they shouldn’t because they’ve been working on this investigation for quite some time and they would prefer these goons not screw it up. “OK, LET’S GO!” Scully says at the end for good measure. Everyone heads off, and Scully reminds Lauren that whatever they’re looking for will most likely be in Dorlund’s office, so they need Lauren to guide them.

RAID! Really this time. That was just the pre-raid. The fibbies start tearing the place apart, and Scully and Lauren walk stonily past Dorlund into his office.

Cut to some time later. They haven’t found anything, and Dorlund is looking cool as an evil, baby-eating cucumber. “Our case is BLOWN,” bitches Man Suit. “We’ve wasted a year.” He and Woman Suit stomp off. Mulder goes into Dorlund’s office and says they have to go. Scully heads out (sigh…of course she does) with a box of stuff, but Lauren’s still searching, breaking shit and looking inside picture frames and stuff. Dorlund yells that Lauren’s not an agent and has no right to break his personal property. “What about that van that blew up and killed those servicemen?” Lauren snaps back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you stupid BITCH!” says Dorlund, and Lauren lunges for him with a pointy letter opener. Mulder shouts and tries to restrain her, but we all know who’s going to jump in here, don’t we? Sure enough, Dorlund’s slammed against the wall, and he starts choking, grasping at his neck. Lauren shouts, “Don’t kill him! Help us find it!” Dorlund falls to the floor, and lights start exploding.

Out in the main office, Scully hears the noise and drops the box she’s holding. She runs to Dorlund’s office, but it’s locked (OF COURSE) and she can’t get in to see what’s happening (OF COURSE). What’s happening, in fact, includes pictures falling off the walls, a mysterious ghostly wind, and the letter opener flying through the air and pointing right at Dorlund’s face. It hangs there for a second, while Mulder and Lauren watch helplessly, and then zips across the room and into the wall, where it slices away some wallpaper before dropping.

The wind stops. The door gives, and Scully bursts in. ARGH. All she sees is Dorlund gasping on the floor, Mulder and Lauren huddled by the desk with their hair all mussed, and papers blown everywhere. So, definitely unusual, but not paranormal, it must be admitted.

Mulder goes to the wall and examines the tear, pulling back the wallpaper to reveal a floppy disk. BUSTED, Dorlund! Your days of terrorist-helping, baby-eating freedom are over, bizzatch! (Side note: Can you imagine any data of any importance these days being able to fit on a floppy disk? Do you guys remember how much those held? 800K. Yeah. I think the fancy “new” ones held twice that, because they were “two-sided” or something. I hope they could fit all that incriminating evidence into, like, one two-page Word document.)

Another day, or maybe the same day, but another Scully suit, bright cherry red this time, with a white blouse and, unless I am very much mistaken, matching white tights. Maybe it’s that night, because it’s night again. Do you ever notice that it’s night a whole lot on this show? It’s almost like that’s on purpose or something. A “U-Move” trailer is parked outside Lauren’s house, and she’s carrying out her last few boxes, Mulder and Scully at her side. She’s also wearing a sweater that would make fashion anthropologists specializing in the Clinton era very happy: oversized, with a mock turtleneck and white with multicolored diamonds on it. I guess it’s technically argyle, but a very ugly, primary-color-based argyle. Now, I must note that I do realize Lauren’s supposed to be a somewhat frumpy secretary, but still, I really have had a ball with her outfits in this episode. She makes Scully look high-fashion. SEASON 1 Scully. And let me remind you that Scully is, in fact, wearing white tights in this scene, and has been throughout the episode. (I should also note that Mulder’s pants appear to be blue-grey, and his jacket sort of brown-grey, and let’s just kindly say that it doesn’t really match.)

Scully explains, more for us than for Lauren, I suspect, that Dorlund is basically toast, and in addition to all the terrorist hoo-ha they’re charging him with Howard’s murder. Lauren says happily that she’ll come back to testify. Mulder asks where she’s going; the answer is “Away from here.” She starts the engine and, almost as an afterthought, leans out and says “Thanks” before peeling out of there. Yeah, getting away from these crazies is probably a wise course of action, Lauren. Nice to see she’s FINALLY learning some self-preservation! Next stop: that HR poster in the break room.

Mulder and Scully watch her go. Mulder’s tie looks like it’s covered in…postage stamps? Maybe just postage-stamp-shaped designs. Remember when the whole “Mulder’s crazy ties” thing was, well, a thing? It’s in like, two episodes, and then it was in fanfic for the next ten years.

Following are two of the worst-delivered lines in the history of the generally very excellent acting on this show. Maybe part of the awkwardness is how they both turn their heads as if watching Lauren’s car, but it couldn’t be more obvious that they’re just, you know, turning their heads, and the part with Lauren was shot three months ago or something. Mulder, sounding like he’s in a school play, and waiting like seven beats too long to start: “Boy, she’s in a rush to get out of here.” Scully, all spooky-ish and randomly flirtatious: “Out of here, or away from the ghost of Howard Graaaaaves?” Then she smiles, and, to paraphrase Seth Green from the last episode I recapped, it’s just like, what? Lord. It’s so awkward, that exchange. This is probably the scene Chris Carter was watching when he decided they weren’t relating onscreen and he wanted them to go to couples counseling. Heh. Anyway, following that is the oft-quoted exchange about the afterlife (Scully: “I’d settle for a life in this one” — good luck with that, hon), and after that, as they get into their car, is a bit that is one of my favorites, despite the fact that Gillian is being randomly and lamely flirty for the first part of it. Because it’s one of those sweet little “off-duty” Mulder/Scully moments that are so rare, and because I love it and stuff and this is my recap, I present it in its entirety:

Mulder: Have you ever seen the Liberty Bell?

Scully: Yes.

Mulder: You know, I’ve been to Philadelphia a hundred times and I’ve never seen it.

Scully: You’re not missing much. It’s a big bell with a big crack and you have to wait in a long line.

[car drives off; they continue in voice-over]

Mulder: Yeah, but I’d really like to go.

Scully: Why now?

Mulder: I don’t know. *pause* How late do you think they stay open?

And then they went to the Liberty Bell, and they did have to stand in a long line and they were bored and talked about stuff and Mulder bought souvenirs and they ate some fried dough and they didn’t film it because it was boring and didn’t have any conflict or plot and so nobody cared about it but me.

Omaha, Nebraska, where Lauren’s got a new job as assistant chintz sofa, I mean, secretary. That dress…the pattern…the puffed sleeves…oy. Thanks for going out with a bang, Lauren’s wardrobe! It means a lot to me. *sniffle* She hands some Miss Gulch-looking lady some typed-up something-or-other, and Miss Gulch scolds her for being late with it — she asked for it 25 minutes ago, for the love of little apples! And maybe that’s how they do things BACK EAST, but here in the Midwest, PUNCTUALITY is a VIRTUE! Lauren looks a little crestfallen. Just then, Miss Gulch’s coffee cup starts jiggling, and Lauren looks like she’s…well, like she’s seen a ghost, you might say. Miss Gulch, however, isn’t the least bit fazed (nor phased, as in, hit by a phaser — that’s certainly a relief, too) — she complains that they need new office space, because every time a truck goes by everything shakes. Lauren is thoroughly relieved, and she takes her chintz-covered self (A MATCHING BELT!!! With GOLD BELT BUCKLE) back to her desk, where the Ben Franklin plaque has a place of honor. She looks at it, and she thinks of Howard, and no one gets invisibly choked to death for her benefit in front of her eyes, and she smiles. Somewhere, a blurry witch hat is at peace.

You know what I just noticed? There aren’t really any shadows in this episode. I mean, any more than usual. Ripoff!