SEASON 1

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SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

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Ack – closeup of Michelle Ma Belle, and I hope those bags under her eyes are being enhanced with makeup to play up the creepy, because otherwise she needs some urgent medical attention. Mulder is asking her questions about what the man looked like – he’s got a Photo-fit computer programme that some geek is running for him. Why they need two of them to do this is beyond me. Surely it would be less threatening for the child just to have the Photo-fit guy there. Mulder gets the guy to put a funny moustache on the picture to make Michelle laugh, I suppose in an attempt to make her feel more comfortable. Well, it would help if you stopped looming over her, Mulder. Then the computer program sort of glitches and the moustache changes to a normal one. Spooky. Mulder asks Michelle if the man’s moustache was like that and she nods, slowly and creepily. She’s a weird kid. Meanwhile, Scully’s interviewing Michelle’s mother. Wherever they live is over half an hour’s drive from Buffalo, and when Michelle’s Mum got home, Mrs. Dougherty was locked in the wine cellar. I hope Michelle’s Mum checked Mrs. Dougherty’s handbag for stray bottles of Bolly before she left for the day. It’s so hard to get good help these days. It turns out that Michelle has already gone through four nannies this year and it’s only April! Michelle is a problem child. She should call that Jo Supernanny woman. After a few sessions on the ‘naughty stair’, I’m sure Michelle would be right as a trivet!

I’m trying to take this scene seriously, but Michelle’s Mum is wearing a strand of pearls with some sort of brown basket-weave cardigan that appears to have shoulder-pads. Avert your eyes! Save yourself! Even Scully appears to be mesmerised by the horror, much in the same way that traffic slows when there’s been an accident. She tells Scully that Michelle frightens her, and judging by her fashion choices, she’s made of stern stuff indeed. We should be afraid, very afraid. Scully’s hair is looking rather attractive for Season 1, although we haven’t yet seen what she’s wearing under her huge dark trench coat. Michelle’s Mum tells Scully that Michelle isn’t like other little girls, that she doesn’t have friends and hardly ever smiles, and that she feels terrible because she can’t comfort her. Turns out that Michelle sees things that other people can’t and hears people yelling in her head. Time for the Thorazine, I think. They had to cover the pool because she started to scream every time she got near the water. Perhaps they should check her for raccoon bites. Just to make this story a little sadder, it turns out that Michelle’s parents are divorced. And in a particularly gruesome addition, Mulder comes out of the house with the picture of the man Michelle says she saw, and his trench coat blows open and he’s wearing some sort of light purple suit. I kid you not, light purple. Whose bright idea was that? Not that he doesn’t carry it off (he does), but it’s rather a bizarre styling choice. Of course Mum’s never seen the man before, and the Sheila that Michelle was talking about is Dr. Braun, a developmental psychologist. Mulder looks up at Michelle, who throws a blue origami bird out of the window at him. Mulder thinks it looks like a hawk or a falcon. He asks Michelle’s Mum where Michelle learnt how to do origami, but she has no idea. The kid’s better at it than I am, but that’s not much of a stretch, as I am completely crap at origami. Mulder sends Scully off to do the autopsy, while he goes to have a chat to Dr. Braun at Brylin Hospital. He wants Scully to check for burns or lesions on Detective Sleaze’s body. Sceptically, Scully asks why and Mulder tells her that psychokinesis is usually associated with electric charge. Psychokinesis? That’s quite a leap. We still haven’t ruled out a man that can become invisible or who can squeeze out through the vents of the building yet. OK, now we get a look at what Scully’s got on under her navy-blue trench coat. It’s some sort of double-breasted suit, in a truly horrible brown pin stripe with some sort of royal blue blouse underneath. I’m thinking there’s layer upon layer upon layer of shoulder pads in this outfit, as it makes her look chunky. It’s the Sara Lee of Scully outfits. Mulder is speculating that a 60-pound kid threw a 200-pound detective out the window using only the power of her mind. Scully is somewhat less than enchanted with this theory and shows it by rolling her eyes and pursing her lips. Ooh, debunk me, baby!

Boom-chaka-laka over to the Brylin Psychiatric Hospital, where Dr. Sheila is telling Mulder that she doesn’t recognise the man in the picture. I think I’ve seen him before, but I think it’s in my collection of seventies porn trailers that I keep for amusement value. Duchovny is the only man I’ve ever seen that can actually rock the pornstache, but I prefer him without it. To the pornstache, boys and girls, Just Say No. The actress playing this part was also in Die Hand Die Verletzt in Season 3 as one of the satanic P&Cers. She feels that it’s possible that Michelle completely fantasized the man alleged to be in the room, dissociative disorders blee, intensity of patient’s emotions blah, too much for one personality to process yadda yadda yadda. Part of the personality splits itself off fishcakes. Mulder says: “Like in schizophrenia?” Did you find that PhD in psychology in a Cornflakes packet, Mulder? Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not interchangeable with Multiple Personality Disorder. Schizophrenics usually experience auditory (and sometimes other) hallucinations, and often exhibit paranoid behaviour. Sheila’s talking about MPD. Jeepers. Maybe you aren’t really a psychologist after all. Sheila’s primary challenge has been to discover the source of Michelle’s extreme rage and goes on to say that in most cases it’s attributable to a traumatic event in the person’s life. Like, say, early exposure to extremely unfortunate fashion choices perhaps? As part of the treatment, Dr. Sheila sometimes leaves Michelle alone with a doll, which Michelle disfigures in exactly the same way every time – she’s torn off the left arm and blackened the right eye. Hey, is she getting psychic premonitions of what is going to happen to Krycek in Tunguska? You should look into that, Mulder. Sheila first thought that Michelle was being abused, but she had some sessions with her parents and discovered that wasn’t the case, so now she’s at a loss to explain it. Mulder asks if she’s tried deep progression hypnosis, but Dr. Sheila thinks it’s unreliable. You should give her Scully’s cell number, Mulder. They could get together and discuss confabulation over a latte. Sheila has been relying on Thorazine (am I good or what?) to regulate Michelle’s more bizarre behaviour. Mulder chooses this point in the conversation to go off the reservation, asking whether Dr. Sheila has observed any unexplained phenomena in Michelle’s presence, like inordinate strength, psychic ability, telekinesis? Dr. Sheila gives Mulder a look like she’s mentally writing out his script for Thorazine, and is trying to calculate his body weight to get the right dosage. She asks him if he’s joking, and when it’s clear he’s not, she tells him she has a patient waiting and throws him out politely.

Yoink! We have a close-up of a foot with a toe tag attached, which announces the body to be that of Rudolph Barbala. Hee, I didn’t know his first name was Rudolph. Maybe he was a smouldering Latin lover – either that or a Red Nosed Reindeer. I bet his childhood was hellish. Scully’s in her scrubs and performing an autopsy eleven hours and forty-five minutes after death was pronounced. She reluctantly notes a raised lesion approximately seven centimetres below the sternum. Damn that Mulder for being right all the frickin’ time! There’s deep necrosis inconsistent with cause of death determined by Dr. Guilder, but it is consistent with electrocution. Pulling herself together, Scully says that a further tissue analysis will be necessary. You go Scully! Prove him wrong! Deeeeeebuuuuunnnkkk him. Detective Maggie is lurking in the background, wanting to talk to Scully for a second, and trying really hard not to look at the body. I’d have thought police detectives would be a bit more hardened, but I’ll give her a break as it’s someone she actually knew. That would be weird. Scully leaves her attendant to take some pictures, and Maggie shows her a photo that could be a match for the Photo-fit. It’s Officer Charlie Morris, who used to work Narcotics out of the 27. Scully seems happy that there’s going to be a rational explanation for the killing, but of course she’s in for disappointment yet again. Charlie Morris has been dead for nine years that means that the little girl saw a ghost. I’d say that’s the least of her problems, judging by Mulder’s confab with her psychiatrist.