SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

< PREVIOUS

The mechanic is saying, “If you don't believe me, take a look here,” and touches her shoulder. Big mistake. She gasps and grabs a ratchet, beating him in the head with it, yelling. He screams, too, and falls, hitting the light so it swings crazily as the rest of the scene unfolds. She tries to hit him again, but he strikes back, just in self-defense. He reaches for a hammer, and she grabs what the transcript informs me is the nozzle for an oil can. I would have had no idea, so we would have been left with 'generic pointy metal thing'. We see him prepare to hit her while she faces him determinedly, and then he screams and there's a flesh-squishing sound. He falls to the ground with the nozzle jammed in his stomach. It's dripping blood, and there is blood on her shoes. We hear her walking away as the camera shows us the diagnostic screen, which says, “ANALYSIS COMPLETE: NEXT”.

Another digital light, but it's just Mulder using an alarmingly huge camera to take pictures of the mechanic's body. He then picks up the bagged bloody ratchet, and notices the diagnostic screen still blinking the same message. He's looking at a clipboard, maybe the mechanic's appointment log, when Bill Nye and another guy (hee, I'm a poet) walk over.

The other guy introduces himself as Larry Winter, county supervisor, and shakes Mulder's gloved hand. Mulder: “Uh, pardon my rubber.” Yeah. Anyway. The county supervisor wants to know if this is more of the same. Bill points out that this doesn't look connected, which prompts Larry to wonder if he should be relieved or worried about copycat killers.

Mulder flips through the pages, which list what repairs have been done, while Bill goes on that it's not a copycat because it's not a copy of the other incidents: it wasn't in a public area, and the suspect fled, covering “his” tracks. Mulder reaches a page that lists a replacement of the digital dashboard clock. Ah ha. As Bill adds that the killer “appears not to have had a premeditated weapon”, which seems to me to be a weird way of saying that, Mulder jumps in that “they are connected.”

The McRoberts house. She opens the door to Mulder asking if she's Mrs. McRoberts. For a second, she looks like Mimi Rogers and I start screaming, but then I recognize her and stop, relieved. So Mulder shows her his ID, introducing himself and Sheriff Bill, and asks if they can come in. Mrs. McRoberts seems reluctant because she's late for work, but Mulder just tells her to blame him and walks in, Bill following behind.

Mulder opens the conversation by asking about her car trouble, and Mrs. McRoberts counters that it's her husband's department. But no, Mulder can't speak with him because he just took the car to Pittsburgh for a meeting. Opening the fridge, she asks if they mind if she has breakfast. Mulder does not, so she puts whatever it is in the microwave.

The microwave, instead of displaying the cooking time, however, tells her, “HE KNOWS”, with another knell of dooooom. As she gasps and swallows, Mulder pulls out the garage invoice and mentions that she signed it. He asks if she picked up the car last night, although Duchovny's inflection on the question is really weird. It is inflected, not monotone for once, but it sounds like a statement. Perhaps picking up on this, the microwave says, “KILL 'EM BOTH”. She gasps again, quietly, and replies, “Yes,” in a low voice.

Mulder walks over to the microwave, which reads “7:35 AM”. Hey, I don't think any of the microwaves I've owned said whether it was AM or PM. Sad. And I guess she never actually microwaved anything, since... it's not running anymore, and I don't think it ever did. Oookay.

Mulder asks if she could describe how the dashboard readout got damaged. Mrs. McRoberts looks like she's about to cry. Mulder presses, “Mrs. McRoberts?”, looking about as concerned as DD ever does this early on in the series.

Finally, she says, voice trembling, “I did it. I broke it.” Mulder asks why, and she surreptitiously opens the knife drawer conveniently placed under her. She doesn't answer, but grips a knife as he walks closer to her and suggests that she saw something in the readout. Oh, Mulder. So smart and yet so dumb. He gently offers to help, and then puts his hand on her shoulder. Sigh.

She shrieks and goes after him, slashing his arm and then knocking him over. On top of him, she reaches up to stab him, when Bill (who has been doing... what, this whole time?) orders her to stop. Mulder cries, “No!” but she doesn't stop so Bill shoots.

We fade to a shot of Mrs. McRoberts' body at the Quantico lab. Scully has done the autopsy, naturally. In her voiceover (sigh)/notes from the procedure, she states that several anomalies were found, that weren't present in the other autopsies for this case. For example, the woman's adrenaline levels were 200 times normal, and her adrenal gland appeared hemorrhaged – not from disease, but “rahther” from wear. GA's pronunciation sounded very British there.