X-Files Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Trevor   Credits   Gallery   Transcript    

"Trevor" is the seventeenth episode of the sixth season of The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on April 11, 1999. The episode was written by Jim Guttridge and Ken Hawryliw, and was directed by Rob Bowman.

Trevor is a "Monster-of-the-week" story, independent of the series' mythology arc.

Synopsis[]

Agents Mulder and Scully pursue an escaped convict in Mississippi capable of passing through any kind of solid matter, and is desperate to meet his son for the first time.

Summary[]

Shack In AT ornado

Wilson Pinker Rawls locked in a shack as a tornado hits the prison work camp.

At a prison farm in Jasper County, Mississippi, where the prisoners are being made to prepare the outhouses for a tornado which is due to pass within the next few hours. An argument breaks out between Wilson Pinker Rawls and another inmate leading to Pinker nailing the other prisoner's hand to a wall. After reporting to the governor, Pinker is made to sit through the tornado in a tiny shack as a punishment. However, after the tornado passes, the small shack has been completely ripped to pieces. A guard goes to report to the governor about Pinker's disappearance and assumed death but finds the governor's body split in half around the waist propping the door shut from the inside.

Scully performs the autopsy on the body and concludes that the severing of the torso and severe burn marks could have possibly been caused by the weather conditions at the time and that a substantial amount of the torso is missing from the severing. Upon investigation at the crime scene, the guard that found the governor's body insists that it was Pinker but cannot explain how he did it. Mulder finds that a wall in the office has become extremely brittle and crumbles in his hand.

Meanwhile, a couple is watching the TV when a report comes in about the tornado killing Pinker as it hit the prison. The woman is visibly disturbed by the news.

Elsewhere, Pinker has broken into a clothes store and is thwarted by a security officer. After cuffing Pinker, he goes to report this capture, but Pinker has somehow gotten out of these cuffs and escapes from this store in this officer's car which becomes a getaway vehicle.

Mulder and Scully soon arrive at this store and this security guard shows both of them how he captured Pinker and apparently escaped. And so Mulder inspects the handcuffs used to restrain Pinker and realizes they have crumbled into dust.

IWantWhatsMine

One of Pinker's messages. Left with his own finger phasing the matter of the wall.

Pinker is now ransacking a house looking for something when the occupant arrives back. After a brief discussion with Pinker requesting the whereabouts of his girlfriend (the woman from earlier watching the TV report we learn) the man pulls a gun on Pinker. However, as he tries to shoot Pinker, the bullets merely pass through him and Pinker kills him by apparently burning his face clean off.

Mulder and Scully arrive shortly thereafter and find the dead man on the floor. Mulder examines how the bullets have ended up in the wall and find they too, crumble into dust when compressed and muses that Pinker appears to have been affected by the weather causing him to be able to pass through walls unharmed and that lead bullets cannot penetrate his flesh. Scully argues that Pinker can not possibly defy the laws of chemistry.

Clues including a photograph lead the agents to attempting to locate the lady who was upset over Pinker's death, June Gurwitch, but no records exist since 1996. June's sister, Jackie, warns June but is accosted by Pinker. Mulder and Scully discover her in her severely chemically altered house where she tells them that Pinker walked through her walls.

TrevorPinkerJuneJackie

Trevor Andrew Rawls meets his father. June & Jackie Gurwitch stand behind him.

The agents learn that June changed her last name to avoid Pinker and track her down living with her new boyfriend and learn more about Pinker's violent past and a robbery which left Pinker in jail and June $90,000 richer. June's new boyfriend refuses witness protection and Pinker was hiding in the agents car, leading him to June's new house. Inside, Pinker has left a charred indentation message on a wall with a mirror, but the agents discovered that glass repulses Pinker's abilities. Scully deciphers a doctors note and learns that Pinker is not only looking for money but also his baby.


JuneGurwitchInCarMulderApproaching

Mulder approaches June Gurwitch after she runs over Wilson Pinker Rawls.

Pinker kidnaps June from witness protection and discovers his baby is a boy, Trevor. Pinker beats up June and Jackie and attempts to kidnap Trevor. Mulder and Scully arrive in the nick of time and Scully uses Mulder's glass hypothesis to save Trevor by locking themselves inside a telephone box. He attempts to smash through in order to break through the glass, but stops and backs away once he sees what he has done in front of Trevor. June kills Pinker by driving into him, although the front of the car goes through him harmlessly, the windshield connects and he is chopped in half.

Once Mulder arrives and stops June, she asks what he wanted. And Mulder deduced, "Maybe another chance".

References[]

Jackson, Mississippi; Meridian, Stringer, Mississippi

Quotes[]

  • SCULLY: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
  • MULDER: Yes we should. But not for this.


  • SCULLY: I don't know. It's, uh... it's not a simple bisection. There's a considerable amount of his abdomen missing. I mean, it almost looks like a burning but it's too localized. Maybe an industrial acid.
  • MULDER: There's, um... no acid found in his office.
  • SCULLY: Hmm. Spontaneous human combustion.
  • MULDER: Scully...!
  • SCULLY: Well, isn't that where you're going with this?
  • MULDER: Dear Diary: Today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion.
  • SCULLY: Mulder, there are one or two somewhat well-documented cases.(Mulder stares at Scully) Mulder, shut up.
  • SCULLY: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
  • MULDER: Yes we should. But not for this.

After Pinker dies,

  • JUNE: What did he want?
  • FOX: May be a second chance.

Background Information[]

  • Originally this episode included an effects-laden action sequence in which Mulder pursues Rawls from one end of a motel to the other. Rawls would have taken a shortcut by passing through the motel's interior walls. This scene was never shot both to save money and shift the emphasis of the episode from the supernatural to the emotional.

Notes[]

  • Ken Hawryliw, the co-writer of this episode, was the property master on The X-Files when the show was still shot in Vancouver.
  • Guest-stars John Diehl and Catherine Dent later go on to appear in the FX series "The Shield." Catherine also guest stars on many TV series including "Frasier" and "The Sopranos".
  • "Trevor" is named after Trevor Marquiss, a young nephew of Producer John Shiban.

Goofs[]

  • When Pinker is shot by Bo, he empties the magazine of his pistol, but then you hear the click, click, click of him pull the trigger several times. This would not happen as the pistol slide would have locked open upon the firing of the last round. Interestingly, when they find Bo's body the next morning, Scully mentions that the "slide is locked open".
  • When Jackie throws the soup at Pinker, it passes through his clothes as well as his body; but Pinker can only make his body pass through objects, nothing else. This is illustrated by the way his clothes slid down the wall as he passed through it later in the episode.
  • When, at the prison, Mulder is looking through Pinkers footlocker. On the front his name is spelled "Rauls." Later in the episode, in a news report, his name is spelled "Rawls." This could be intentional, as local news stations often misspell names. His criminal record papers also spell it as Rawls so that is most likely the correct spelling.
  • When June drives the car through Pinker, he gets cut in half with the windshield and Pinker's body goes through the engine block. Thus the engine's material would have changed, and the engine would have crumbled under the combustion or inertia forces and immediately stopped functioning. But Mulder turns off the car's engine a minute later.

Allusions[]

  • While Scully examines the body of Captain Raybert Fellowes, she asked Mulder if they should arrest David Copperfield. David Copperfield is an American illusionist, or "Magician"
  • While looking through a box of containing Pinker Rawls possessions, Mulder pulls out an item and says "Ouch" mimicking Steven Spielberg's E.T.

Cast[]

Starring

Guest Starring

Co-Starring

Trivia[]

  • Both John Diehl and Catherine Dent both later starred in the FX series "The Shield" as Assistant Chief Ben Gilroy and Officer Danny Sofer, respectively.

External Links[]


Episode Navigation[]

Advertisement