Página PrincipalInternal dating: February 24, 1999 is indicated when Scully makes the videotape of the Kleins' house. The teaser happens seven months earlier.
He complains to his wife, who laughs him off. Mr. Klein opens a mysterious package on the table and finds a woodcutter whirligig. It's enough to make the neighbors annoyed, he says, and puts it up on the house.
During the night he can hear the toy blowing in the breeze. Then he hears noises coming from downstairs. He goes down to investigate, but the camera stays on the frightened Mrs. Klein. She hears a scuffle and footsteps coming closer to her...
The credits roll: The Truth is Out There
Seven months later, a minivan pulls up in front of the Klein's house, and its occupants are greeted by a nervous-looking lady holding a basket of fruit. Pat Verlander introduces herself to "Rob and Laura Petrie," who are Mulder and Scully. She expresses concern that they won't be moved in by the six-o'clock deadline and an army of neighbors descends to do the work for them.
Scully tries to dissuade a large man from picking up a crate labeled "china." The man insists, and drops the box to the ground, much to Scully's dismay.
Among the neighbors is a man named Wynn, who seems unusually perturbed by the portable basketball hoop that Mulder is planning to put up in the front driveway. Wynn tells Mulder that he might be able to get "dispensation" from a Mr. Gogolak, the neighborhood association President.
The house is so clean, Mulder remarks, that he wishes he could send a thank-you note to the previous owners, the Kleins. This earns him a sickly smile from the neighbors.
The move is completed at one minute to six, and the neighbors head off in a way eerily reminiscent of the barn-building scene in "Witness."
"Yeah, nothing weird goin' on around here," Mulder says. He makes a joke about carrying Scully over the threshold, but she's ready to get to work, pulling on her latex gloves and opening the "china" box. The equipment she needed for lab results is broken, but she takes out a camcorder and, as she begins to film, starts to tell the story of why they're here:
"6:01 pm, February 24th, Agents Scully and Mulder in the former home of David and Nancy Klein, who disappeared without a trace last July. The Kleins were the third such couple to disappear since this neighborhood was built in 1991. All were apparently stable professional people w/no history of violence, domestic discord, or mental illness, and it took a family member or an employee to realize they were gone, including their cars and personal items. What local police found in each case was ... nothing. Just impeccably manicured homes and a community of neighbors who professed total ignorance that anyone had disappeared."
Scully also notes that Mulder doesn't seem to be taking this seriously.
"I'm taking it seriously," Mulder says, "I just don't understand why we're on it. It's our first catch back on The X-files. This isn't an X-file."
"Sure it is - it's unexplained. What do you want? Aliens? Tractor beams?" asks Scully.
The doorbell rings and Mulder, intent on "playing house," demands (in his best redneck imitation) that Scully make him a sandwich. We see her gloves smack him in the face as she leaves to answer the door.
It's Mike, the burly man who dropped the "china" box, holding a box of his own dishes and apologizing profusely. Scully spots a cadeuceus on a chain around Mike's neck and asks if he's a doctor. A veterinarian, he corrects, offering to check on any new pet they might like - as long as it's under 16 pounds, which is the limit posed by the CC&R.;
"With all this hospitality, I can't believe the Kleins ever left," Scully uses as an opener, but Mike becomes extremely flustered and leaves.
When Scully returns to the living room, she sees Mulder scraping something off of the fan blades. They save the sample as Scully wonders how it could even have gotten all the way up there.
Some of the homeowners have met for dinner at Gogolak's house. Just as the conversation turns to the new neighbors, the "Stepford" wives retreat to do the dishes while the men talk about the Petries. Mike's conscience is evidently bothering him, and he suggests that "this time" they should warn the new people what the consequences will be. He's so overwrought after making this statement that he has to excuse himself to use the facilities; Gogolak also dismisses another man to "make sure he gets there."
Alone now with Wynn, Gogolak describes Mike as a weak link...
We see Mike in his recliner, watching a special about tribal conformity. The bulb in his streetlight goes out, and he rushes quickly to replace it. The bulb is broken, cutting his fingers open, yet he continues until he has the light working. Something is stirring behind him, and even as he protests that he fixed the problem, we hear wet thuds and see blood pooling on the steps.
The next morning, Mulder and Scully arrive at Mike's to return the box of china only to find Wynn hosing off the blood. Wynn asks how their first night went.
"We just spooned up like little baby cats," Mulder drawls, making the most of it. "Isn't that right, Honeybunch?"
Scully has her riposte ready: "That's right, Poopyhead."
They inquire about the missing Mike, but Wynn cuts them off by saying that sometimes Mike is gone for weeks at a time. He then invites the Petries to dinner.
At Gogolak's house, Mulder and Scully are sitting in a grand imitation of marital bliss, arms around one another and holding hands, while Gogolak checks the CC&R book. Sure enough, portable basketball hoops are forbidden. "Rules are rules," he intones. "A basketball hoop might not sound like much, but from there it's just a few short steps to spinning-daisy reflectors and a bass boat in the driveway."
"In short - anarchy," Mulder deadpans, raising Gogolak's hackles. Noticing the decor, Mulder asks Gogolak if the design is eastern. Gogolak informs them with pride that he owns "Pier 9 imports" and can get them a "good deal" on rattan furniture. Indoor, of course...
That night, the Schroeders and Petiries are dining together. Wynn asks his wife, Cami, if she remembered to use dolphin-safe tuna. Mulder remarks that dolphins are pretty tasty, too, which results in Scully barking out an insincere laugh to cover the horror of their hosts. Wynn asks where they met.
"Actually, it was at a UFO conference."
If the Schroeders were nonplussed by the dolphin remark, then this has completely floored them. "Flying saucers?" Wynn asks. "Wouldn't have thought you folks would have been into that."
"Well, it's not me so much as Laura," Mulder intones, mentioning magnetic bracelets and crystals, and calling Scully "a sucker for all that stuff."
Cami says she wouldn't have guessed that.
"No kidding," says Scully, in a tone that implies that Mulder will be made to pay for his glib lies.
Mulder and Scully press the issue about the missing Mike, saying that his veterinary service didn't know where he went. Just as the tension mounts, the well-trained Cami says that she needs to take the dog for a walk. Scully offers to go with her.
The two women walk uncomfortably, especially when Scully asks if Arcadia isn't Cami's idea of the American Dream. Just as Cami is about to confide in Scully, the dog gets loose and disappears into a sewer grating. Cami is unusually horrified.
Scully takes out a flashlight and peers into the grating. She sees Mike's gold cadeuceus in the muck. The dog bolts back out into the open with a glob of something dark on his muzzle. Scully wipes the goo away with a handkerchief and pockets it for evidence.
As they walk away, the manhole cover opens...
Mulder and Scully discuss the events of the evening as Mulder is lying on the bed and Scully is in the bathroom. Scully's arm shoots out and displays incorrectly-squeezed toothpaste.
Mulder looks at the assorted evidence and asks what they can do about it. Scully says that she'll drive into San Diego the next day to check it out. We hear a clatter, and then: "Third warning - toilet seat."
Scully emerges from the bathroom in a white robe and green face mask (alien green?), startling Mulder. She mentions that she doesn't see the intent in what's going on.
"Compulsive neatness, or a lack thereof? " Mulder theorizes. "Have you notices how everybody here is obsessed with the neighborhood rules and CC&R's? You know what? You fit in really well here."
"And you...don't," Scully says matter-of-factly.
"Tomorrow I've got a sure fire way of testing out my theory." Mulder pulls up on one elbow much as he did in "Triangle" and, giving Scully a puppy-dog look, pats the bed. "C'mon Laura. We're married now."
"SCULLY," she says firmly. "Mulder, good night."
Half-sulking, Mulder takes a pillow and heads for the door. "The thrill is gone," he mutters as Scully smirks at his retreating form.
Alone in the house the next day, Mulder decides to perform his experiment. Taking a pink flamingo out to the front lawn, he places it squarely in the middle with some pride. When he returns a while later, however, the flamingo is gone. Stymied for a moment, he decides to kick the mailbox until it leans over, then pours some of his orange juice over it. Determined not to miss the show, he takes a seat by the front door.
Hours pass. He fidgets, obviously in need of relieving himself, even testing the size of the juice container's opening. Finally he gives up and goes to the bathroom. Sure enough, in his absence things have been set right. Mulder goes out and finds a note on the mailbox: "Be like the others before it gets dark."
In the darkness, Mulder shoots hoops through his portable basketball setup. Wynn, trying to assuage his clearly terrified wife, comes over and tries to get Mulder to move the hoop inside. When Mulder resists, Wynn reminds Mulder that he's "been warned."
"Warned about what?" Mulder asks.
Meanwhile, a mysterious bulge under the grass at the Schroeders' house opens up and a dark, slimy monster tries to attack Cami. The men run it off.
Cami and Wynn notice that their streetlight is now dark, the bulb broken just as Mike's had been.
The basketball hoop is dragged back into the garage by an unseen entity.
When Scully returns the next day with the forensic evidence, a noise gets her attention and she picks up the fireplace poker as a weapon. She searches the upstairs first, then comes back down the stairs. A figure startles her and she barely checks her swing in time to keep from bashing Mulder's head in. "Something was in the house," Scully gasps.
"Tidying up. Whoever it was put away my put away my basketball hoop. Someone's looking out for us, Scully, which may not be a bad thing. I got a look at that thing that's been scaring everybody, and I take it back. This is an X-file. "
Wynn goes to Gogolak. "What did we do wrong, Gene?" he asks. "Was our welcome mat not to your liking? Did I coil my garden hose clockwise instead of counterclockwise?" He waves the broken bulb at Gogolak and says that the "exact same thing" happened to Mike because it's what Wynn did at Gogolak's bidding.
Gogolak smoothly says, "Son, you'll want to take a deep breath and rethink that theory. It's your next door neighbor, Win. He's a rabble rouser, he's trouble with a capital 't.' And you and I both know it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the whole bunch. "
Meawhile, Mulder is showing Scully the place where the monster disappeared. The sod comes up easily. "I'm guessing there's one of these in every yard. This is how this thing travels, how it lives."
Scully takes a deep breath, speaking carefully and neutrally. "In the ground. This huge creature you think you saw."
Mulder nods and Scully continues. "Look, Mulder, huge creatures aside, do you care to hear what I think?"
"Always" is the quick response.
Inside the house, Scully shows Mulder some lab reports. The gunk on the fan and on the dog is made up of simple household waste. "Mulder, it's garbage," she tells him, "which makes perfect sense because thie entire neighborhood has been built upon an enormous landfill."
Mulder wonders if the Kleins might be buried amidst the refuse. Scully reminds him that a forensic excavation would blow their cover.
The next morning, we see that Mulder has found a way around the problem. As the neighbors watch, aghast, huge machines are digging up the "Petries' " front yard. Pat is apoplectic, but Mulder calmly tells her that the CC&R;doesn't forbid a "reflecting pool."
From the side of the group, Gogolak says to Wynn: "Let him dig his own grave."
In the darkness of the evening, Scully finds Mulder still digging around in the pit left behind by the machines. Mulder comes up with the whirligig and finds the Pier 9 sticker on the underside - a connection to Gogolak.
Scully insists that a forensic team be sent to the house immediately. She hears a noise and runs upstairs to the bedroom for her gun - which is not found in her holster. Something grabs her from behind and covers her mouth.
"It's come for you, Laura. You have to get out of here." The speaker is Big Mike, who has been horribly injured. He holds Scully's gun in his hand.
"Who did this to you?" Scully asks in concern.
"The übermenscher," Mike tells her as he bars the door with furniture. "It's our fault. The original homeowners - we asked for it, now we can't stop it." Mike has tried to get the monster to turn on Schroeder, but Mulder's antics have drawn its attention. Mike is now trying to protect Laura from the monster.
Despite Scully's protests that she's a federal agent, Mike shoves her in a closet and blocks it with furniture. From her vantage point, Scully hears a fight and sees the muzzle flash from her gun as it goes off over and over again.
Mulder is at Gogolak's house, telling him that he knows about the Tulpa legend and that Gogolak is responsible for creating it - a Golem-like creature that can be summoned up but cannot be controled.
"Son, my lawyers are going to make you sound *so* stupid, that not only will I not see the inside of a jail cell, but you'll be signing all your paychecks straight to me," Gogolak says, not at all impressed. Nonetheless, Mulder takes him in handcuffs back to "his" house. The silence and the open front door alarm him. He chains Gogolak to the mailbox and goes inside, calling for Scully. He hears Scully responding and heads for the bedroom, which is a blood-covered wreck. He works some of the door slats loose as Scully tells him about the monster.
Wynn arrives and finds Gogolak chained to the mailbox. He does not seem inclined to help.
Mulder hears noise from the front yard. Leaving Scully to wrench her own way out of the closet, Mulder heads back down to Gogolak. The monster is attacking him, then turns and heads for Mulder.
Gogolak dies from his injuries and the monster turns into a heap of refuse on Mulder's shoes.
We see Scully and Mulder head into their minivan on a bright, sunny day. Scully's voice-over is heard as the van and the moving truck drive off: "Several residents of the Falls have now come forward to blame the deaths in the neighborhood on Home Owner Association President Gene Gogolak. These same residents deny agent Mulder's allegations that they were in some sense all responsible for the demise of Gogolak himself, claiming ignorance as to what actually killed him. It would seem the code of silence that hid the sins of this community has not only survived, but in its creator claimed a final victim. Meanwhile, the Falls at Arcadia has been named one of the top planned communities in California for the sixth year running."
Fade to black.
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