Series:	The X-Files
Original Airdate:	9-30-94
Production Number:	2x03
Date(s):	Unknown
Story by:	Darin Morgan
Teleplay by:	Glen Morgan & James Wong
Directed by:	David Nutter

Apparently prompted by messages from digital appliances with instructions to kill, several residents of a small farming community suddenly turn violent and dangerous.

Contents 1 Summary 2 Background Information 2.1 Nitpicks 3 Links and References 3.1 Guest Stars 3.2 Co-stars 3.3 References

SummaryEdit

The episode opens at a postal center in Franklin, Pennsylvania. Edward Funsch (William Sanderson) sits entering zip codes into a mail sorting machine. The machine jams and he cuts his finger on an envelope. He seems mesmerized by the small drop of blood. His boss comes over to tell him that he has to be downsized, though it's a decision he wishes he didn't have to make since everyone gets on well with Ed, a somewhat simple man who is "new to this area." His boss recommends he stays for the rest of the week, but when Ed gets back to the machine, he sees the word "Kill" on the machine's digital display.

At the Franklin Civic Center, a middle-aged man in a crowded elevator sees "No Air" displayed on the elevator's LCD display. He seems to be the only one to see the message. Sweating and obviously nervous, he glances at the LCD screen again. It flashes the words "Can't Breathe" and then "Kill Them All."

Agent Mulder arrives at the civic center after what looks like a massacre. Bodies lie on the sidewalk and in the foyer, where a Sheriff Spencer explains that the suspect murdered four people from the elevator with his bare hands before a member of security took him down . Spencer is mystified because Franklin is a quiet farming town, but in the last six months seven individuals have murdered 22 people. Mulder inspects the elevator and notices the electronic display has been damaged. He examines the suspect's body, noting a green residue on the man's fingertips.

Agent Scully reads Mulder's initial report back at Quantico. Mulder believes the Franklin incidents are spree killings but the suspects all seem to be healthy people, outwardly normal and unlikely to fit a criminal profile. The only connection he can see is that the suspects all destroyed an electronic device at the time of the murders.

Meanwhile, Bonnie McRoberts drops by an auto repair garage to pick up her car. A message on an engine diagnostic display warns her that the mechanic is going to rape and murder her. She becomes hysterical and kills him with an oil funnel. When Mulder and the Sherrif question McRoberts the next morning, her kitchen microwave instructs her to kill them. She grabs a knife and slashes Mulder's arm before Spencer draws his gun and fires.

At Quantico, Scully performs an autopsy on McRoberts' body. She discovers high levels of adrenaline, physiologically signs of trauma, and the same substance found on the elevator killer. She speculates that the substance, when combined with other neurochemicals, produces an LSD-like reaction.

While Mulder and Scully build a case, Ed Funsch becomes more confused. He continues to see violent messages on electronic gadgets, and blood is associated with each incident; an ATM displays "Kill Them All" after Ed notices a child with a nose bleed. After trying several places to find a new job, a volunteer asks Ed to donate for the Franklin Community Blood Drive at a department store. Distressed, he walks away and ends up in the Domestic Appliances, where he sees violent images flash across a sales display of televisions, followed by a message to buy a gun from the Sporting Goods department.

While jogging, Mulder sees a city worker dump dead flies along the roadside. He takes a sample to the Lone Gunmen, who suggest that the flies have been sprayed with LSDM, a pesticide that invokes a fear response in insects. Mulder returns to Franklin that night to investigate an orchard, where he gets sprayed by a crop-dusting helicopter and has to be taken to the hospital. After an awkward debate with city spokesman Larry Winter, Mulder sees the message "Do It Now" in a fitness commercial. He proposes that when people exposed to the pesticide see subliminal messages relating to their phobias, their paranoia is heightened enough to make them kill. Mulder believes this to be evidence of a controlled experiment in the Franklin area. Winter concedes and agrees to stop the spraying and blood test the community, which will be put under the guise of a cholesterol study. Neighborhoods are canvassed and several names show up on a list of untested people; Ed Funsch's is one of them.

Mulder and Scully arrive at Ed's house to find it strewn with smashed electronic devices. A nurse collecting blood samples visited Ed's house earlier in the day, but no one would answer. Mulder realizes that blood is Ed's phobia and that he's been seeing the subliminal messages. An empty gun case indicates that Ed is going to act on his delusions, and the hunt is on to find him before he becomes the next unwitting killer.

Background InformationEdit

• The address on the envelope right before the first digital messages are shown to Edward Funsch is in Grand Rapids, MI, where Scully actress Gillian Anderson went to City High School.
• Mrs. McRoberts, the woman who kills the mechanic, was played by porn star Kimberly Ashlyn Gere. She is credited under the name Kimberly Patton.
• The nurse buzzing on the door was buzzing the word 'Kill' in Morse code.
• The scene in which Edward Funsch climbs the campus tower for his shootings is based on an actual incident. On 1 August 1966, Charles Whitman went to the observation deck on the 27th floor of the clock tower on the University of Texas - Austin campus and began a 92-minute shooting spree leaving 16 dead and many wounded, ending when Whitman was shot by police. That incident and nine other deaths, seven of them suicides, led to the deck's closing in 1974. After installing heavy security and safety measures, the observation platform was reopened in 1999.

Nitpicks Edit

• Some of the subliminal messages would have taken an almost impossible amount of effort to arrange. Altering a wristwatch or microwave so that it can send a message at the right time would require completely rebuilding it. The level of planning and observation required to set up some of the messages would also be difficult to achieve, and it all adds up to mean that you can kill someone indirectly with a huge amount of work. Why would anyone bother? Note that in the autopsy of Mrs. McRoberts, Scully reports finding traces of a compound containing lysergic acid (the active component of LSD). This allows for a reasonable supposition that the messages "delivered" by the electronic displays were the result of hallucinations, not reprogramming or rebuilding. Lingering effects from Mulder's exposure to the LSDM could also explain his seeing the message on his phone at the end (although this could have been an ordinary text message). It's interesting to note that of all the different forms of LSD that have been created, only one has been shown to be psychoactive.
• In the investigation scene following the mechanics murder, Mulder is wearing rubber gloves but when he scans his finger down the clipboard, his hand is bare.

Links and ReferencesEdit

Guest StarsEdit

• William Sanderson as Edward Funsch
• John Cygan as Sheriff Spencer
• Kimberly Ashlyn Gere as Bonnie McRoberts
• George Touliatos as Larry Winter

Co-starsEdit

• Bruce Harwood as John Fitzgerald Byers
• Dean Haglund as Richard Langly
• Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike
• Gerry Rousseau as Mechanic
• Andre Daniels as Harry
• William Mackenzie as Bus Driver
• Diana Stevan as Mrs. Adams
• David Fredericks as Security Guard
• Kathleen Duborg as Mother
• John Harris as Mr. Taber
• B.J. Harrison as Clerk

ReferencesEdit

Franklin; Pennsylvania; digital display; adrenal glands; adrenaline; LSD; LSDM; subliminal message

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The X-Files Season 2

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