“Folie a Deux” (French for “a madness shared by two”) sees Mulder finally locked up in the loony bin after five years of chasing aliens, ghosts, and vampires with little solid evidence to show for it. You figured that would have to happen at some point, no?
Mulder is called to a Chicago telemarketing company which sells vinyl aiding because a taped manifesto has been discovered by an employee claiming a monster works there, hiding in the light. Mulder goes alone, because he suspects this matter is pointless work being thrown on him because of his reputation. Instead, he gets caught up in a hostage situation by the employee who believes his boss is a monster who is turning his employees into zombies.
The FBI eventually raids the office in order to rescue the hostages. They kill the deranged employee, but not before Mulder is convinced he has seen the man’s boss’ true colors as a monster, too.
Mulder pieces together clues from several other X-Files to determine this sort of incident has occurred before and the boss has been marginally attached to all of them. Scully and Skinner both assume Mulder is suffering some PTSD, but he will not drop the matter. He heads back to Chicago to ’protect” other employees in what looks more like stalking to everyone else. His claims the boss is a monster get him locked up.
Even Scully thinks he has finally lost his mind, but out of loyalty, she follows up on the one lead he gives her--the monster leaves some sort of marks on the back of the neck of the victims he zombifies. She discovers them on the neck of an allegedly zombified shooting victim in the earlier hostage situation. Surmising Mulder may be in trouble at the hospital, Scully arrives that night just in time to save him from the monster. With her confirming enough of his story, Mulder is released and returns to work. The monster is free to roam another telemarketing firm.
Considering how quickly points of continuity are forgotten between episodes, it is strangely refreshing to see Mulder’s broken finger still buddy taped from the previous episode.
We never get a really good look at the monster. Rumor has it the costume was laughably bad and had to be enhanced by CGI. From the brief glimpses we do so, it appears very insect-like. Mulder claims at one point this monster may be like a praying mantis in that it hypnotizes its prey. The actual monster resembles a roach. There is probably something Kafka-esque meant there, along with a tongue in cheek message that telemarketers are truly dead inside, but neither point jumps out at you. What did jump out at me is Mulder’s reference to the Helsinki syndrome in reference to his shared vision of the monster with his hostage taker. We meant Stockholm Syndrome, the phenomena of a hostage becoming sympathetic to the viewpoints of his captor. That is a glaring factual error.
Otherwise, “Folie a Deux” is an enjoyable episode. It feels a lot like filler before the season finale, but it does not come across as badly as many episodes in that unfortunate position have in the past. The episode does not stand up to much scrutiny, sop just enjoy it for what it is.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
“Folie a Deux” (French for “a madness shared by two”) sees Mulder finally locked up in the loony bin after five years of chasing aliens, ghosts, and vampires with little solid evidence to show for it. You figured that would have to happen at some point, no?
